Nightmares
by ImagineDragon Bastille
Summary: "Nightmares?" asked Clint. Natasha nodded her head in confirmation. "Hamburg." Natasha confessed. Natasha is having nightmares about her past and Clint comforts her. Meanwhile, Tony is trying to find out Natasha's mysterious past. Implied Thane and Pepperony. Contains mild swearing.
1. Chapter 1

**_Natasha's POV_**

_She was in a glass box. It was pitch black in the room she had been kept for two days. _

_No one had come in; the only sound was her ragged breathing and the ticking of a clock. All of a sudden, just like every time she had this nightmare, water started filling the box. Slowly, she sank into a sitting position, hugging her knees. Water, everywhere. It rose above her ankles, then her knees, she stood up, desperately trying to break the glass. Natasha pounded on the glass and screamed until her scream became a rasp. Natasha gasped for air as the water covered her waist, then her chest, then her neck._

Natasha sat up, her eyes wide, gasping for air. She untangled herself from her sweat soaked sheets and glanced at her clock. 3:30; half an hour longer than the previous night. Natasha got out of bed, knowing she wouldn't be able to sleep any more. Throwing on some clothes, Natasha headed for the gym. The avengers tower had everything, a workout gym, shooting range, an avengers lounge; practically any room named would be in the 100-floor tower.

Natasha stayed at the gym until 7:30. She headed back to her room and took a shower. None of the avengers knew about this morning routine occurring almost every day. Natasha made sure of that, she took a shower every morning and made it look as if she had just waken up. Red room training kept Natasha from showing no physical appearance that in the last three days she had gotten 8 hours of sleep. Natasha was always the first one up, not counting Tony who, much to everyone's chagrin occasionally went days without sleeping. Steve or Clint would usually be the second person up. Today it was Steve. Steve and Natasha had a sort of brother sister relationship.

"Early morning?" asked Steve.

" Yeah, I was just at the gym," replied Natasha, pouring herself some coffee.

"That's where I'm headed out now." Steve said as he walked towards the gym. Natasha sipped her coffee relishing the tranquil silence. Just then, a certain billionaire walked out of the elevator.

"Stark," Natasha greeted." You're up early."

" What did you do before you worked for S.H.I.E.L.D?" Tony blurted.

" What?" said Natasha suddenly icy.

" Well I know the Bruce, Steve, Clint, and Thor's history, you're the only one I don't know anything about. I checked your S.H.I.E.L.D. file but-" Tony was cut short.

" Stark, I swear to god if you finish that sentence I will embed this knife in your skull." Natasha growled, a knife appearing in her hand. Tony shut up. Of all the residence occupying his tower, Natasha scared him the most. Sighing, Natasha started back to her room, but ran into none other than Clint.

"Hey Tash," yawned Clint. "What'd Tony do to you this time?"

"Leave me alone," snapped Natasha as she pushed her way through Clint and toward her room. Upon arriving in her room Natasha slammed the door behind her letting it automatically lock behind her. Natasha sat on her bed, engulfed in the memories that plagued her dreams. A few minutes later, the doorknob rattled, like someone was trying to turn it. After a few rattles, it grew silent again. Lying on her back, Natasha closed her eyes and was immediately assaulted by the images of her victims. She remembered each one of them. All of a sudden, her air vent cover rattled, and fell off.

"Godd*mn it Clint, what the h*ll are you doing up there, again?" Natasha called. The air vent cover came off silently and out dropped Clint.

"Natasha," Clint asked," Have you been sleeping?" Natasha shrugged in response.

" How many hours of sleep did you get last night?"

"2 and a half," whispered Natasha.

"Nightmares?" asked Clint. Natasha nodded her head in confirmation.

"Hamburg." Natasha confessed, her eyes looking haunted. Clint put a comforting arm around Natasha, pulling her into a hug. Clint's presence always seemed to calm Natasha down, her nightmares weren't as bad when Clint was around. Their presence each other was mutual; their nightmares weren't as bad when they were together. After years in the red room, Natasha didn't trust anyone for years. It took Clint almost two years to gain her trust. of all the people at S.H.I.E.L.D, Natasha only trusted Clint, Coulson, and Fury. Natasha had worked at S.H.I.E.L.D. for 7 years.

" Every time I try to sleep, I can't stop thinking of Hamburg," Natasha said.

Later that night was dinner, Pepper had gotten a reservation at an incredibly fancy restaurant, so naturally,everyone had to attend. Everyone meaning Tony, Steve, Bruce, Thor, Natasha, Clint, Pepper, and Jane. Natasha dreaded dinner; she would have to face Tony, who she had been avoiding all day.

"Why hello Natasha," Tony greeted as soon as Natasha and Clint arrived." I haven't seen you all day," Dinner was miserable for Natasha; Tony constantly pestering her with questions. With each question Tony asked, Natasha thought of all the people she had ruthlessly killed.

When dinner was finally over, Natasha changed out of her fancy dress and into her pajamas. She had promised Clint that she would at least try to sleep that night. Natasha slipped into her bed and closed her eyes.

**I got the idea of the glass box with water from Divergent, do you like it? Reviews are appreciated!**


	2. Chapter 2

**I could not decide how to write this chapter. Hope you like it!**

When Natasha woke up the next day, something was wrong. She rolled over and found herself in the arms of Clint. She definitely wasn't drunk last night; she had a very high tolerance for alcohol. So why was she in bed with Clint?

"Clint, what the h*ll am I doing in your bed?" Natasha asked, to a sleeping Clint. She got no response.

"Clint! Get your lazy *ss awake!" Natasha yelled, throwing a pillow at him.

"Tash, its too early," mumbled Clint. But when he kept on getting pillows hurled at him, he finally sat up and explained what had happened.

" Last night around 1:30 you crawled through the vents to my room. I think you were still dreaming because you kept on insisting that I had left you. Anyways, you just got into bed with me and fell back asleep. Any nightmares?" Clint asked.

"No," Natasha admitted. They had shared beds dozens of times on missions, so that portion of the story didn't really bother her.

"Clint?" Natasha asked as she started toward the vent.

"Yeah?"

"That was the best I have ever slept in weeks." Natasha thanked, and with that, she was gone. Half an hour later, Natasha walked out of her room, all showered. Today she had slept in- it was 8:00. Steve was already back from a morning jog and was pouring himself some cereal.

"Did you sleep in?" asked Steve.

" Yeah," Natasha replied. Natasha lingered in the dining room a little longer, waiting for Clint. As 40 minutes went by, it became evident that Clint had fallen back asleep. Instead of getting Clint, Natasha got Tony. Apparently he had been waiting for her all morning.

" Stark, what the h*ll do you want?" Natasha demanded upon Tony climbing out of a cabinet.

" You know what I want dear Natasha, where did you work before joining we S.H.E.I.L.D?" Said Tony. Despite the fact that Natasha scared the sh*t out of him, he would not admit defeat.

" Stark, get the h*ll out of here." Natasha threatened.

" Why is my question so hard to answer? Here, I'll go first I was a billionaire, genius, playboy, and philanthropist before I became iron man." Tony pressed.

" You want to know something Stark? I was capable of killing a man 10 different ways before I reached the age 7." That shut Tony up.

Natasha decided to pass time by going to the gym and beat some punching bags. Which is how Clint found her an hour later.

"Hey, Tash?" Called Clint.

" What?"

" let's spar."

"Barton, you know I beat your *ss every single time," teased Natasha.

They both got on the sparring mat. Natasha got into a flawless defensive stance. Clint mirrored her. They circled each other, searching for weak spots. With no warning, Natasha aimed a punch at Clint. The punch never reached its mark, not that she expected it to. Using her momentum behind the punch, Clint grabbed her arm and use it to supposedly fling her behind him. Unfortunately Natasha and Clint had known each other for seven years, she had expected him do react like this. When Clint pulled her to throw her, Natasha flipped into the air. Before she landed, Natasha kicked him in the chest . While Clint still incapacitated (a total of 3.4 seconds) Natasha had put him in a hold. To get out, Clint pulled Natasha's arm behind her back, at that awkward angle that could dislocate her shoulder, forcing her to let go. by the time Natasha let go, Clint had gotten her in a hold. Natasha struggled against Clint's toned bulk.

" d*mn it Clint! How much cement did you eat this morning?" Gasped Natasha. As soon as Clint went to answer, Natasha kneed him in the stomach and he let go. A silent agreement passed through them and the sparring session was over.

" I think I won that one," Clint declared.

" You did I not, I had my hold on you longer and I could've killed you 7 different ways."

" Liar! My hold was longer!" Argued Clint.

" Oh, and how many ways could you have killed me during that hold?" Natasha smirked.

"4"

" I win," Natasha said as she walked out of the gym.

"d*mn it! Not again," grumbled Clint, to the empty gym,

Every Wednesday night was movie night. Everyone had their designated spots. Tony and Pepper would lay on one side of the couch, while Bruce occupied the other. Steve stretched out on the carpet. A pile of comfy mattresses served as Natasha's spot. Clint's was a the carpet with Steve at the bottom of the couch. When Thor was around, he got the second couch with Jane.

"We should watch Star Wars," Declared Tony.

" No that's stupid, we just watched that," objected Clint. And thus began another half hour of bickering that probably would have lasted all night had not Pepper and and Natasha taken charge. Throughout the last six months, Pepper and Natasha had developed a relationship, resulting in a girls' night out each Friday, providing Pepper was not working and Natasha was not on a mission. After watching 7 episodes of How I Met Your Mother, they went to bed.

Natasha sighed as she slipped into her covers, dreading the inevitable nightmares.

_She was back in the red room, laying on a sterile table that resembled a hospital table. Thick leather straps held her in place. Then a man, known as Dr. Volkov in the red room, walked into her room and injected her with some drug._

_"Who do you serve?" Asked Volkov, as soon as the drug took hold of her._

_" Mother Russia," answered Natalia in a monotone._

_"Good. Your mission is to seduce and kill David Belikov, he has been disloyal to mother Russia" instructed Volkov._

_" Your name is Katerina Pokrovsky you are 20 years old" came Volkov's voice." You will attend the gala that he is going to."_

_" Yes sir," _

_Natasha's dream shifted. She was still in that sterile white room, but now she had eliminated her target. Volkov walked in and inserted the needle in her arm that would drug her again._

_"You have served mother Russia well Natalia." Volkov praised. "You are Natalia now, you are 17 years old. Who do you serve?"_

_" I serve mother Russia." Natalia's monotone of a voice answered._

Natash sat up, relief filling her when she realized that she was no longer in the clutches of the red room. Subconsciously, Natasha got out of bed and climbed into her air vent. Natasha crawled in the direction of Clint's room. When she reached her destination, though still in a dream state, Natasha dropped onto the carpet, making no noise. Noise in the red room got you killed. Clint barely woke up as Natasha leaned against his body, nightmares now at bay.

**reviews and ideas are appreciated!**


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning, Natasha was not as bewildered as to why she was in Clint's bed as she was the previous morning. She rolled over, out of the bed and went back to her room, via the air vents. This morning routine happened nearly every morning for the next two weeks. On Tuesday of the third week, Clint forgot that that morning he had told the guys that he would join them at breakfast, to discuss a " matter of importance" at 9:30. It happened to be 10:00, so Tony told J.A.R.V.I.S. to "get his lazy *ss awake and out of bed". After ten minutes, they sent Steve to go wake him up.

" Clint, get up!" Steve knocked on his door. Getting no response, Steve opened the door. Inside was a sleeping Clint, and in his arms was a sleeping Natasha. He was lying on his back and her head was on his shoulder. One of his arms was underneath her head, and the other was gripping her waist. Her arm was sprawled on his chest. Both assassins had such a tough exterior, but it seemed that deep down, despite the h*ll they had been through, they still had a soft side. Steve quickly backed out of the room, deciding not to mention this to the rest of the team. They would tell them if they wanted to. Knocking much louder this time Steve told him to get up. Clint finally woke up and if Steve hadn't walked into the room he wouldn't have heard it, but there was a frantic shuffling and Clint opened the door.

" What?" Clint said, blearily.

" We're going to breakfast, remember?" Steve reminded.

" Oh sh*t! What time is it?" Clint asked.

"It's ten, we'll wait for you down stairs."

" Kay," mumbled Clint. Ten minutes later, Clint had showered, dressed and done his hair. Eight of those ten minutes were spent styling hair.

" Guys, I have a dilemma, I want to propose to Pepper, but I don't know how, Tony said, as soon as they had sat down.

"Well, what is Pepper's favorite place?" asked Thor.

"She loves the beach, but she also loves the place downtown, the Gotham Bar and Grill." Tony said," Those are two completely different places."

" You could take her to the Gotham Bar and Grill, and then to the beach and –"

"At sunset." Clint interrupted Bruce's idea.

" After dinner, take her to the beach, at sunset, and propose. Finished Bruce.

" Great, but when and what kind of ring?"

" How about…. July 6th ? " Suggested Steve, " That has a nice ring to it…. July 6th…"

"July 6th?! That's barely over a month from now! It's June 1! I cant wait that long!" exclaimed Tony. "Sooner"

" Okay then… how about June 6?" suggested Thor.

" Or June 11?" said Bruce

"Or June 21?" said Clint.

" I like …June 11. I'm going to propose to the most amazing woman on June 11!" Declared Tony. Although none of them wanted to tell him this, Steve, Thor, Bruce, and Clint all thought of someone else when the phrase "most amazing woman" was vocalized. "Now for the ring," Tony moved on.

" I think I speak for all of us, but we don't know a thing about what kind of rings women like." Said Clint, looking at a rage monster, a guy who was frozen in ice for 70 years, and a Norse god. " You could ask Natasha or Jane to help you." Said Clint.

"Jane is going to Ohio to see her mother, who is ill. So you would have to ask Natasha." Said Thor, just as Tony had made up his mind to ask Jane, as Natasha scared the sh*t out of him.

" Oh," said Tony, paling at the prospect of asking Natasha to help him, after he had harassed her so much.

* * *

><p>" Uh.. Natasha?" asked a nervous Tony. He had decided that he would ask her in an environment where A, Pepper was not there, and B, he could run away if she got really mad.<br>"What Stark?" Natasha said. It was obvious she was still pissed at him for all the questions.

"Could I talk to you for a minute?" Tony ventured.

"One minute." Natasha followed tony out of the living room. Clint had told her that Tony wanted to talk to her and that she should listen to him. Natasha didn't want to, but she trusted Clint.

" Ok, ummm I'mgoingtoproposetoPepper,andIneedyoutohelpmepickouttheengagementring. Please?" Tony asked. He knew it was a long shot .

" Of course I will. when are we going?" asked Natasha. Tony could not believe she actually agreed to go with him, even after he had annoyed the crap out of her.

" I was thinking we could go now. Pepper's still at Stark Industries. She gets off work at 5, so we have 3 hours. 2 hours later and 3 incidents in which people thought Tony was engaged to Natasha, tony and Natasha arrived back at the tower.

"Where do I hide it?" Tony wailed to Natasha.

" Where is the one place Pepper never goes?" asked Natasha.

" Well, she seems to avoid the workshop at all costs." said Tony.

" Good, then hide it in the workshop." said Natasha. When Pepper got home later that day, she found Tony, not only sober, but in an incredibly good mood.

**Okay, i have reached a dilemma, should Clint and Natasha start dating? reviews are appreciated!**


	4. Chapter 4

**It took me a while to come up with this. hope you like it!**

When Tony announced to the guys that he was going to propose to Pepper, that made Clint think about his own love life. When Tony said the phrase " most amazing woman ever", he thought of none other than Natasha Romanoff, his partner and best friend. It made Clint think that he might want to take their relationship one step farther. They knew each other inside and out, in some cases quit literally. But how? She was Natasha d*mn Romanoff, Queen of icy glares and stoicness. He decided to do it at twilight, her favorite time of night, very romantic. Clint was getting dressed watching a certain red head, whom he had just been thinking about, sleep. When Clint got out of the shower, Natasha was still in his bed, peacefully sleeping. Clint ate a quick breakfast, and then headed to the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Coulson had said that he needed to talk to him.

* * *

><p>When Natasha got up, pointedly not making his bed, a running joke between her and Clint, she hauled herself into the air vents. Luckily, Tony had stopped harassing her with his intrusive questions after she had helped him with the ring. She took a shower and was now drinking coffee and eating a bagel. Somehow, her thoughts wandered to her past. She put her plate in the sink; JARVIS would clean it and headed back to her room, lost in thought. Somehow, her thoughts wandered to her past.<p>

_She had just gotten back from a mission and she had messed up. There was a witness in her mission and Ivan was seething. Of course, that witness had been in an "unfortunate accident" before he could alert the authorities, but Ivan was still mad that his perfect creation had messed up and had left witnesses. When she arrived at the red room HQ, she was immediately thrown into a dark, empty cell. All it contained was a bed that had a springy mattress. Sitting on the bed, Natalia waited for the inevitable punishment. In reality, the waiting only lasted about 10 seconds, but in the cell, it seemed like eternity. Finally, a red room guard came in and dragged Natalia away from her cell. They arrived in a room. In it was a bed, with leather straps, like they were there to restrain someone, and a few knives, and a variety of other torture devices. Upon seeing the room, Natalia started kicking and screaming, trying to relinquish the guard's hold on her. But this was a red room guard, he held onto her until she was too exhausted from struggling. He laid her on the table and pulled the leather straps over her, affectively immobilizing her bottom half. Knowing what was in store for her, she thrashed against the straps, but could not do any affective damage to them. First, her right wrist was strapped down. Then her arm. Then her left wrist. Then her stomach and chest. The feeling of complete and utter helplessness washed over her, she could not move her entire body. When the guard was done, he left her in the room, completely immobile, waiting for the Ivan's inevitable wrath. He walked in._

"_Natalia, you had a witness," Natalia said nothing. Her makeshift bed tilted downwards, so her head was lower than her feet. Waterboarding, one of the worst. But, after years of the red room punishments, Natalia had grown almost immune to it. A cloth was put over her face, despite her immunity to waterboarding, she still hated it. Water was poured over her mouth. Involuntarily, Natalia choked, trying to repel the water. Then came the knives. Ivan delicately traced a design on her wrist…._

"Natasha?" asked Tony. Natasha was standing in the hallway coughing and fingering a scar on her wrist. Some of the events of her nightmare carried into reality. "Natasha! Snap out of it!" Tony realized that Natasha was in somewhat of a dream state. Finally, she seemed to snap out of it and focused on Tony.

"What?" asked Natasha.

"You were just standing in the hallway staring into space, what were you doing?"

" Just thinking about some…. Stuff," Natasha quickly answered. But Tony had already figured out what she was thinking about.

"What is it Nat? Maybe I can help." Tony said in an un-Tony like voice; concern. She had never let him call her Nat. Natasha heard the unspoken question Tony had asked. But this wasn't the Tony who had kept on pestering her about her past. This time, the only reason he wanted to know was so that he could help her.

" I was thinking about the red room," Natasha began." It was one of my first missions, and I screwed up, there was a witness. Every time we messed up, we were punished, sometimes we were just punished for no apparent reason."

" Who were the we?" asked Tony, curious again, despite the worry he still had for Natasha.

" The other red room recruits. Anyways, because of that, I have a very high pain tolerance."

" What happened to the other recruits?" asked Tony.

" I killed them," Natasha whispered," There could only be one Black Widow, and I was the best of that batch. We all knew that there was some sort of test at the end to become the black widow, but we didn't know what. They took me into a room, gave me a gun, and told me that I had to shoot them, or they would kill me. The brought them in one by one, so they thought that I had picked them to die. The last girl, Katarina, she was my best friend. They were all like sisters to me; we had been together for 11 years, since we were 5, and I killed all of them." Natasha walked out of the room, holding back five years' worth of remorse.

* * *

><p>Clint Barton walked through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s HQ, ignoring all the whispers arising when he walked past. People still didn't trust him after what Loki had done to him, despite what he had done in New York, against those extraterrestrial god*mned aliens.<p>

" We need you on a recon mission," Coulson said as he arrived in his office." There is evidence that a weapons dealer is building a nuclear bomb that could devastate earth. It could take at most a month, it could take a week. Here is your cover, you leave tomorrow at 8:00 am."

Clint looked his file over in his room at the avengers tower. It was just the usual stuff. Weirdly though, it was a solo mission. Ever since he had spared her life in London, Clint and Natasha, Hawkeye and Black Widow, Strike team Delta, were usually partners for these kind of missions. Clint came to the most likely conclusion 11.5 seconds faster than the average human being. The council had picked him for this mission, not strike team delta, because they needed to make sure that he had properly recovered from Loki. He could not afford to screw up.

" Hey Tash," Clint greeted, when Natasha walked into his room.

" Where've you been?" asked Natasha.

" At the headquarters, I got a mission." said Clint, for some reason he didn't want to tell her that the mission was solo. Natasha raised an eyebrow.

"Solo?" asked Natasha. She had come to the same conclusion as Clint, 3.5 seconds faster than him, 15 seconds before the average human being.

"Yep," said Clint, popping the p. Without even asking, Natasha got into Clint's bed. Only when Clint went to bed did she actually fall asleep.

**hope you liked it! as always, reviews are appreciated.**


	5. Chapter 5

Nightmares chapter 5

Clint was gone on his mission a total of one 12 days, 14 hours, and 23 minutes. Those 12 days, 14 hours, and 23 minutes were a living h*ll for Natasha. During the day, she would appear fine, talkative (or as talkative as the Black Widow ever got) and seemingly not affected by Clint's absence. But during the night, she would wake up from some nightmare. With no Clint to comfort her, Natasha would just get up and go work out at the gym. At 4:00 Natasha rolled out of bed, extremely sleep deprived, but unable to sleep, and went to the gym. When she was done, she went back to her room to take a shower. This occurred every morning of Clint's absence. The 12th morning was no different. Although Natasha didn't know it, Clint was coming home that very day.

" Would you like to go on a jog with me?" Steve asked Natasha. They were both in the kitchen either preparing their breakfast (Steve), or finishing it (Natasha).

"No thanks, I was at the gym this morning and I just took a shower." Declined Natasha. After Natasha left, Steve was finished his light breakfast, but before he could leave, a hysterical Tony ran into the kitchen.

" There you are!" gasped Tony." I've been looking everywhere for you!"

" What?" asked Steve, a little taken a back.

" I am having a freak out,"

"Ummmm, why are you freaking out?" asked a completely lost Steve.

" It's June 11!" wailed Tony." I'm proposing today! My mind keeps going through these different scenarios, I mean, what of she says no!"

* * *

><p>Tony and Pepper are walking by the beach. The waves are crashing on the sand. When Tony looks at Pepper, her face is illuminated by that sunsetty glow; she is gorgeous.<p>

"Pepper Potts, you are the most amazing woman I have ever met, and I didn't appreciate that until lately, will you marry me?" proposed Tony.

"Wait, you want me to marry …you?" laughed Pepper.

" Well, yes,"

" I'm sorry Tony, but I'm seeing Aldrich Killian right now, and he already got me a better ring, so, no, I won't marry you."

* * *

><p>" You never know! What if that happens!" howled Tony.<p>

" Why Aldrich Killian? look at him! Have you seen that guy's face?" comforted Steve.

* * *

><p>Tony and Pepper are walking by the beach the waves are crashing on the sand. When Tony looks at Pepper, her face is illuminated by that sunsetty glow; she is gorgeous. Tony is looking at her when all of a sudden, a great white shark leaps out of the water, and swallows Pepper in one gulp.<p>

* * *

><p>" I'm starting to think that we shouldn't go to the beach, there might be a super shark there, waiting to eat my Pepper. Maybe we should stay in the city! I wouldn't be able to live with myself" cried Tony, wailing at the very thought of Pepper not being with him.<p>

* * *

><p>Tony and Pepper are walking in the romantic city if New York. When Tony looks at Pepper, her face is illuminated be the glow of the dim street lamps. Despite the lighting, she is gorgeous.<p>

" Pepper Potts, you are the most amazing woman I have ever met, and I didn't appreciate you until lately, will you mar-" Tony was cut short by the appearance of big foot. Big foot grabbed Pepper by her waist and ran off with her.

"You never know!" Said a hysterical Tony?

" For one, big foot is in Washington and Canada, not New York. If anything, you should be worried about king kong. Listen Tony, underneath all of your jack*sssness, you are a loving, caring, and amazing boyfriend. Your going to make an amazing fiancé, maybe even a dad." Steve assured.

" Wait a minute there Captain, I have no intention of becoming a dad. Ever." Corrected Tony.

" Just don't forget what I said," said Steve, walking back towards his room," you are still an annoying jack*ss."

At 12:30, Clint walked back in the tower, for the first time in 12 days, 14 hours, and 23 minutes. After an exhausting mission, and a nearly as exhausting debrief at S.H.I.E.L.D, Clint was ready to be home. Before he showered, however, he had to see Natasha. He found her in her room, watching T.V.

" Hey, I'm back," greeted Clint, making sure she saw him, as to not surprise her. A surprised Natasha was a dangerous Natasha. The last time had accidentally surprised her, he had ended up on the ground with a knife embedded a mere 3 centimeters from his head.

" You're back," said Natasha. She had no expression, just the good old poker face. Natasha studied Clint for a minute, examining every detail of him." Clint, you didn't go to medical afterwards, did you?" asked Natasha, but more as a statement, she already knew.

" No, " admitted Clint, " you know how I feel about hospitals." Wordlessly, both of them went into her bathroom. Natasha got out the medical kit. He took off his shirt and let her examine his various cuts and bruises. Watching her work, Clint couldn't help but notice how cute she looked, her eyebrows forming a faint scowl from concentrating on doing his stitches. When she was done they both crashed on her bed, both sleep deprived, and fell asleep. By the time 5:30 had rolled around, they were still asleep.

"Natasha?" asked Pepper, knocking on her door. Earlier that day Natasha had said she would help Pepper what to wear on her date with Tony. " You in there?" Pepper slowly opened the door. Inside was Natasha, and surprisingly, Clint. She did not get home in time for the 20-minute period in which Clint was not with Natasha's room. They were spooning on her bed. One of his arms was draped over her shoulders and was holding her hand. The forgotten TV was still on, a reporter was babbling on about some newfound insect specimen. Pepper quickly closed the door and decided to give them five more minutes until she would instruct JARVIS to wake Natasha up. When Pepper came inside, Natasha woke up.

"Clint, get up," Natasha shook Clint. After a minute of shaking, Clint finally got out of bed. Pepper knocked again.

" Hey Natasha?" called Pepper." Can I come in?"

"Yes," Natasha 's muffled voice carried through her door. When Pepper opened the door, Natasha was sitting on her bed and Clint was coming out of the bathroom.

" Oh, hello Clint, nice to see that you got home safely." Pepper greeted, deciding to not question his presence in Natasha'a bathroom." So, Natasha, I can't decide which dress to wear, the blue one, or the black one." Clint, due to the boredom he typically got when listening to dress talk, left Natasha and Pepper to discuss the very important matter of dresses.

" You're going to dinner with Tony, right?" Natasha asked, though she already knew that yes, Pepper and Tony were going to dinner.

" Yes, but he's been acting all fidgety lately, though," sighed Pepper.

" You should wear the blue one. I think the black one looks to formal, like your going to a funeral, or something," advised Natasha.

" Yeah, I'll wear the blue one, I was already leaning towards that one anyways." Decided Pepper. By the time Pepper had dawned her dress, applied her makeup, and carefully styled her hair into a neat, but somehow prettily, messy bun, it was 6:00. She had told Tony that she would meet him in the lobby of the tower at 6:00.

" Hey Tash? Could you come out here for a minute?" asked Clint. They were in Clint's room about to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. His room was on the 90th floor and had an amazing view of New York. He was on the balcony, looking at the beautiful, sparkling city. Though it was night time, not twilight, the setting was romantic.

" What? I was just getting comfy on the bed," Natasha heaved herself out of the bed grumbling.

" Natasha, you are the most amazing person I have ever met, will you go out with me?" asked Clint. Natasha blinked.

" Like…umm…. Be your girlfriend?" asked Natasha.

" Well, yes, we've known each other for 7 years, so what-

" Of course I will!" Natasha interrupted," you probably wouldn't survive without me," she added as an afterthought. Clint brought Natasha close and they kissed. Of course, they had kissed several times previously, but all those kisses were for covers, this was their first meaningful kiss together. they kissed for a good minute before Natasha broke the kiss.

" Should we tell the others?" she murmured.

"I dunno, maybe we should wait for the right moment, you know? Wouldn't want to take away Tony and Pepper's big night,"

" Yeah your probably right, unless Tony does something really b*chy." Natasha said, face threatening to morph into a mischievous grin. With that, they both cuddled on the bed and watched Pirates of the Caribbean. For the first time as a couple, they fell asleep in each other's arms.


	6. Chapter 6

**sorry it took me so long to update, but I haven't really had much inspiration or time in awhile. Hope you enjoy!**

While Clint and Natasha were happily watching Pirates of the Caribbean, Tony was extremely nervous. They had just finished dinner at the Gotham Bar and Grill and were on their way to the beach.

" So at work today, Aldrich Killien, you know, from high school, came by my office today and invited me to lunch tomorrow, but I declined, I mean, I'm in a relationship!" while Pepper gushed on, Tony's boyfriend alarm was blaring. _Pepper would never cheat on me, right? _Thought Tony, getting more nervous by the second. Finally, the limousine stopped, they were at the beach. They got out and started walking along the beach. The waves were crashing on the beach. Tony looked at Pepper and her face was illuminated by that sunsetty glow; with her long hair let loose from its bun, Pepper was gorgeous. They took off their shoes and started wading into the ocean._ Okay, it's now or never._ Thought Tony hands inadvertently slipping into his pocket where the ring was.

" Pepper Potts, you are the most amazing woman I know, and I have slept with many women" Tony started, kneeling on the sand. " But there is no one in the entire world that I would rather spend my time with. Will you marry me?" Tony proposed. For what seemed like eternity, but in reality was only _maybe_ 2 seconds, Pepper was silent, obviously shocked.

" I… I… yes! I will," stuttered Pepper, while Tony slid the ring on her finger. Tony and Pepper kissed, both extraordinary jubilant. This was undoubtedly the happiest moment of their lives.

" We're engaged!" cried Tony as soon as they entered the tower. Of course, the first 15 floors of the tower were for business, not the residential section, so Tony had just shouted to an empty room.

" We're engaged!" cried Tony as soon as they reached the recreation room of the tower. The only occupants were Thor and Jane and they were engrossed in Mamma Mia. Steve, Bruce, Clint and Natasha were nowhere to be seen.

" That's awesome!" exclaimed Jane, hugging Pepper.

"Man of Iron, that is wonderful news! It is more exciting than these midgardians getting married in this film!" Thor boomed.

* * *

><p>Natasha got up the next morning feeling happy. It took her a few moments to obtain the source of this newfound happiness; she was in a relationship with Clint. She rolled out of Clint's bed and went back to her room to change so she could go to the gym. Her and Clint had practically been in a relationship for the majority of five years, but had never put a name on it other then "partner".<p>

She was at the gym no longer than 10 minutes doing a firefight simulation. For those unfamiliar with firefight simulation: holographic images with guns attacking you, you must defend yourself while not getting injured. Natasha had just vaporized her last holographic assailant when Clint walked in.

" Hey," breathed Natasha. " I bet I could beat you in a sparring match.

" Your on," Clint accepted. Snipers are known for being patient, and that was exactly what Clint was. But he had known Natasha for seven years and only three times out of numerous sparring matches had he made the first move. So before Natasha could perfect her stance, Clint lunged, a punch aimed at her gut. Before the punch reached its mark however, Natasha flipped in the air and wrapped her thighs around his neck. This was such an impeccable and usually unsuspected move that had Natasha really been trying to kill him, he would already be dead, neck snapped. But as he was her boyfriend, she merely severely incapacitated him. To the average onlooker, what happened next happened was too fast to see: Natasha had somehow managed to end up with one of her arms holding his head in place, and the rest of her body had him in some sort of body lock. Clint had seen her perform this maneuver several times on her unfortunate victims, it just so happened to be that he knew a way to get out. Clint reached his free hand around to Natasha's side, and tickled. The black widow was not ticklish, but when she was Natasha Romanoff and not on duty, she was just as ticklish as the next person.

"D*mmit, Clint! Your not allowed to do that!" grumbled Natasha, letting him out. The tickling seemed to bring out the black widow, time to stop playing by the rules. She used his thigh as a step and launched herself into the air. Before she even hit the ground she had kicked him in the groin. Clint doubled over in pain and Natasha stood nearby, a smirk forming on her lips.

" That's playing dirty, you want to really fight?" Clint taunted, a smile plastered in his face. Natasha kicked him in the shin and got no reaction. In retaliation, Clint punched her in the side. She blocked his punch, but he kept on pressing on her blocking arm. Clint reached behind her and pulled those fiery red locks of hers. With her other arm, Natasha jabbed at his nerves in his neck, simultaneously kneeing him in the groin. Clint let go. Natasha directed a punch in his direction but he blocked it. Clint grabbed her arm and was in the middle of twisting it behind her as to get her in an arm lock, when JARVIS interrupted their fight.

"Agents Barton and Romanoff, Mr. Stark would like your presence in the living room."

" Okay, JARVIS tell tony that we'll be up there in ten minutes, after we shower." Natasha instructed.

" Of course agent Romanoff,"

So Clint and Natasha went to their respective rooms to take a shower. Natasha could take a full shower in 1 minutes and 49 seconds. This time though, she took an eight-minute shower. After quickly getting dressed, Natasha went downstairs to the living room. When she arrived, all the avengers, save Thor and Clint, were present. Finally, Clint and Thor arrived. No body noticed that Clint has sat down a little close to Natasha for them to be just partners.

" Okay guys, we have some very important new for you, we're engaged!" Pepper exclaimed."

"That's great!" congratulated Steve.

" Congrats you guys," said Natasha, getting up and hugging Pepper.

" I was so scared that she would say no," said Tony.

" Well, you are one lucky person," Clint said.

"We're thinking of having the wedding on July 21," said Pepper. " That's about a month and a half from now. Is that enough time to plan?"

" Anyways, we were hoping you guys could help us plan," asked Tony.

" Yeah of course" was the general reply.

" Great, but first, I think we should go celebrate at the beach," declared Tony.

When Natasha was young, the red room had taken her and trained her to be an assassin. The training was brutal and resulted in many nightmares for Natasha. That meant that certain phrases or things triggered a flash back. Water was one of them.

_"__Кто__ты__? __Почему__вы__нарушаете__в__?" ( who are you? Why did you break in?) Natalia's interrogator questioned. When Natalia gave no answer, the interrogator nodded at the muscle men. The board Natalia layed upon started tilting back. Before Natalia could prepare herself, a cloth was put over her mouth and water was poured in her open mouth. Natalia gagged and involuntarily tried to spit it out, only causing her to lose more air. The red room would not try to come rescue her, when ever one of their agents was captured they had to get themselves out. Helplessness started to engulf her as water started to get poured into her mouth again. The rope holding her wrist in place finally let go, to the oblivion of her captors. She started working on her other wrist. Ignoring the water, Natalia worked on her bindings. When the other wrist was freed, Natalia opened her eyed and punched her captors. By the time her ankles were free, Natalia had killed all of her captors with well aimed blows. Natalia was reaching toward the door handle, but before she opened it, the door was kicked open. More enemies were on their way. Propelled by gunpoint, Natalia was pushed into another room. Before she could react, a she felt a dart peirce her neck and she went limp. When she woke up, she was tied securely to a bed. Her vision finally cleared and she saw a man standing in front of her, grinning. You could tell from his stance and the way he carried himself that he was high up in his organization._

_«__так__, __ты__убил__всех__ваших__охранников__, __теперь__вы__столкнуться__с__гневом__своего__начальника__"( So, you killed all your gaurds, but now you face the wrath of their boss)__. __Snarled the man__. _

_After 3 hours of torture, the boss finally gave up. _

_"__в__порядке__. __будь__по__-__вашему__, __Бик__," (Fine, have it your way, b*ch!) the boss screamed.__ "__Есть__свой__весело__с__ней__потом__уб__ить__ее__,__" ( have your fun with her, then kill her,) he instructed. A feeling of pure dread washed over Natalia. 10 men remained. The one who seemed to have the most authority grinned. He looked Natalia up and down, still grinning, envisioning all the fun he would have. He took out a knife and ripped away the remains of her top. He grinned even wider. Slowly, he started unzipping his pants..._

"Hey, Tash, you okay?" Clint asked, a hint of worry in his voice. He had seen this look on her face before. She was having a flashback, but what was the trigger this time? Clint thought about everything he knew of Natasha before he had met her. She had been water boarded several times, the talk of beaches must have triggered it. By now all the avengers had stopped chatting and were wondering what she was doing.

"You know what? Nat and I are just gonna stay home, alright?" Clint covered up for her.» she said she wasn't feeling well earlier today." Clint added, due to the dubious looks from them. Who in their right mind wouldn't want to go to the beach?

"Okay, tell Natasha that we hope she feels better," Pepper said. With that, they all left, save Natasha and Clint.

"Hey Tash, it's alright, your here, with me, Clint" he comforted, hugging Natasha.

"I know, it's just, every time I think of water, i think of all the time ai was water boarded," Natasha said, stifling a sob.

"Hey, it's okay, your here with me now," Clint soothed. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"It was one of the last missions I did for the red room before i left," Natasha started. "I was caught and tortured for I don't know, maybe four hours, before I escaped."

By the time the rest of the tower residents got back, Natasha had properly recovered and was back in her normal state.

That night was movie night. To every one's stupefaction, Tony and Clint did not have their standard fight over which movie to watch. Apparently being in a relationship was good for Clint and being engaged was good for Tony. They watched the Princess Bride. Clint, however, chose to sit on the couch next to Natasha, instead of his customary place on the rug. They all waited for Natasha to push him away, but instead she made a little more room for him and accepted his arm around her shoulder. Although everyone noticed this occurrence, no one decided to point it out. Clint's arm was around Natasha and they were lying on the couch. Pepper and Tony were cuddling on the second couch with Bruce lounging on the other end, looking slightly uncomfortable with all this affection. Jane was spooning with Thor who had recently been introduced to the term "spooning". And Steve? Steve was just making himself comfortable on the rug.


	7. Chapter 7

**sorry it took me so long, i haven't had very much inspiration. so review are appresiated  
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Natasha walked through the halls of the helicarrier. Fury wanted her to oversee a recruit interrogate a target. Despite two years of training and nearly four years being a handler, the recruit's handler caught the ongoing flu. Typical. The recruit's name was Marcus Greery; he was due to finish his training in about 2 months. Natasha walked through the hall as she read the target's file. His name was Benjamin Schatz. For some reason that name sounded familiar. He has lived in Germany for all his life… Age 37….No family, he was an orphan… He was caught ordering the assassination of the Spanish ambassador.

Natasha arrived at the interrogation room. Greery was already there, waiting for Schatz to be escorted to the room. A two-sided mirror served as one of the walls. Behind that mirror was the room that Natasha would observe the interrogation in. She could see and hear everything perfectly adequately. The moment Schatz was escorted into the room, Natasha knew why the name had seemed so familiar. She had done three hits for this man after she left the red room. The first time he employed her, she had assassinated a businessman named Philip Armodi. Apparently he had cheated Schatz of some 4,000 euros.

_Natalia's phone rang. _

" _Hello?" she answered in perfect German; the phone traced the caller back to Germany._

" _You are the Black widow, no? A man's voice questioned in German._

" _Yes I am," Natalia carefully replied. Everyone needed to be cautious in this business. Her phone was almost done pinpointing the exact location of the call. Just a precaution._

" _Good, I have an offer for you, 1,000 euros for a hit job. Meet me at the Brunswick Cathedral tomorrow at noon. I will send someone. He will be wearing a red scarf and a blue backpack. He will also say the phrase 'do you know where I might find the brochures for the tour?' That is how you will know it is him" With that, he hung up. _

_The next day Natalia dressed in a sweatshirt, jeans, and a hat that covered all her telltale vivid red hair; tourist clothes. She arrived at the cathedral an hour before the said time. Natalia scanned the area for potential buildings that someone could snipe from. She counted four. Two on the west side, one on the north side, and one on the south side. At noon, Natalia distinguished a man with a red scarf and blue backpack, the image of a tourist. Before approaching him however, Natalia simply observed him until she got every thing that might come in handy later. He had sandy blonde hair, was pretty tall, maybe 6' 7"? He had a thin, reedy body, but that didn't mean he couldn't fight, look at the infamous black widow for instance, she was 5'3". Finally, Natalia approached him. _

" _What do you need me to do?" asked Natalia, sure that this was him due to his tense posture and the fact that he kept looking over his shoulder as if he was expecting some one, or maybe to make sure no one was sneaking up in him. _

" _Do you know where I might find the brochures for the tours?" he asked._

"_So it is you," Natalia stated._

_The man reached into his backpack and produces a small bag. " The information you need is in the flash drive. The boss is giving you 500 upfront. You will get the other 500 when you complete the task." Informed the man. Through his German, Natalia could detect a slight accent. French maybe? Two days later, Natalia had killed a Spanish ambassador. He was 36 and had a wife and two beautiful kids, one boy and one girl. She arrived at the same cathedral and received the other 500 euros._

That mission was the one that got her at the top of S.H.I.E.L.D's hit list. The day that Clint Barton was sent to kill her. Oddly though, Clint and her would not have met it had not been for him. But he was still a criminal, her out of work relationship would not get in the way of her job; she was Natasha d*mn Romanoff.

The interrogation lasted four hours. During the first three hours, Schatz remained persistently quiet. Finally, Greery was instructed through his comm to " walk out of the room and receive further instructions.

" Okay, no matter how impatient you get, stay calm and patient. Try to make him angry. Angry men inadvertently say secrets." Natasha instructed.

" Romanoff, he talking yet?" Fury asked through her comm " No sir, he hasn't said a word,"

" I'm tired of waiting for answers, you go in there and him to start talking, understood?" Fury instructed.

" Sir, I know this man, and he knows me,"

" What the h*ll?" Fury exclaimed." When did you plan on telling me this?"

" After the interrogation," Natasha answered.

Fury's patience had worn thin. The council was waiting for the interrogation tape so they could come to a verdict." By now, I don't care that he knows you, go in there and get me some answers." Fury instructed.

" Yes sir," Greery left the room and Natasha walked in.

" What the h*ll are you doing here now?" asked Schatz. Natasha shrugged in response. " I thought you didn't work fro anyone! The one organization you have to work for and it's S.H.I.E.L.D! Why would they ever take you in?"

" If I recall, you are the one handcuffed to the table and you are the one who answers the questions, not me." Natasha's voice remained eerily calm, though her expression portrayed malice." I defected nine years ago," Natasha answered. This was not the first time she had lied in an interrogation. Natasha Romanoff was a d*mn good liar.

Schatz's brain slowly connected the dots. " The last hit you did for me was eight years ago, you were lying to me that whole time!"

Natasha nodded. " The whole d*mn time, and you bought it too!" she lied some more. After riling Schatz up more, it was only 45 more minutes before she acquired all the answers needed. Her work done on the helicarrier, Natasha took a quinjet back home.

When Natasha got home, she immediately crashed on her bed and fell asleep, only to be bombarded with more nightmares.

_She woke up tied to a chair. Not a flimsy, wooden chair, but a sturdy steel chair bolted to the ground. If given the choice, she could have easily slept have of the day. But, as fate would have it, it was not her choice. The explanation too her sudden awakening lie in the bucket of ice water her captors had deposited on her. Looking around, she saw that Clint was also bound to steel saw that he was also woken in a similar manner. A man spoke. Apparently he wanted to know how S.H.I.E.L.D. had found their whereabouts. Both agents remained noiseless. Then came the punishment for not talking. _

" _Since you aren't talking and seem to care for her, we'll start with her," one of the men snarled, distinguishing Natasha as the wink link. He grabbed her hair and punched her in the stomach. Natasha gasped for air. After numerous punches, they took to cutting her, and then water boarding her, and then cutting her some more. Finally, after 8 hours of this, Natasha couldn't take it any more; she gave Clint a pleading look. In reality, Clint would have told them what they needed to know; he would have betrayed S.H.I.E.L.D. Just so Natasha could have a relatively painless death. This time though, Clint remained silent. The men caught the look that Natasha gave him. They rightfully interpreted this look as a look of help._

" _See? Even you friend here won't help you. He doesn't care about you, he only cares about his job" one of the men mocked._

" _No, that's not true, Clint help me!" Natasha cried. Clint agave her a look of absolute, pure loathing._

" _Clint, help me! Please, help me!" Natasha could not believe that Clint did not, would not help her._

When Clint walked into Natasha's room to ask if she wanted to spar with him, he found her sleeping on her bed. She was obviously having a nightmare and muttering in her sleep.

"Clint, help me! Please, help me!" Natasha muttered. Clint got next to her and put an arm around her.

" Natasha, wake up!" Clint aroused her. Natasha woke up and laid her head on his chest.

" You left me," Natasha murmured.

" I will always come back for you, I promise," Natasha looked up at him and kissed him.

" I love you," Natasha whispered.

"I love you too,"

That night the Tony, Steve, Bruce, Clint, Natasha, and Pepper played truth or dare in the living room. Although Thor was present, he " preferred to not play such a lowly game"

" Who wants to go first?" asked Bruce.

"I will," Tony said, before anyone could respond. " Hmm… Steve! Truth or dare?"

" Dare," Steve said, regretting the decision immediately.

" Steve, I dare you to… go the rest of the year wearing clothes that we pick out." Tony cackled evilly. Everyone knew that Steve only wore clothes from the 70's.

" Okay… Clint, truth or dare?" asked Steve.

" Dare," Clint firmly replied.  
>" Okaaay then, I dare you to prank call Fury. Clint shrugged, he had already prank called S.H.I.E.L.D's director numerous time. Clint got the phone and dialed Fury's number.<p>

" Hello? Clint asked in a shrill, girl's voice.

" What do you want?" demanded Fury.

" What aisle are the pop tarts at Walmart?"

" Listen lady, I don't know what you are talking about. I have been to Walmart twice in my entire life, and I'm 47!" he exclaimed, getting impatient. At the Avenger's tower, all the residents exchanged looks. None of them, not even Clint or Natasha, knew how old Fury was.

" But the manager told me to call your number," Clint said." I REFUSE to hang up until you tell me where the pop tarts are!"

"Okay, okay the pop tarts are in aisle 7, now goodbye." For someone who could withstand hours of interrogation without divulging any information, Fury had given up surprisingly fast. Perhaps it was an arduous day at work. He hung up.

" Should I call him back?" asked Clint. Yes, was the general reply. Clint dialed Fury's number again.

" I am in aisle 7! And let me tell you that there are no pop tarts here," Clint screamed at Fury, still using the girl voice. All the avengers were in fits of laughter. No one in all of history had pranked Fury this bad before. " "No pop arts, and a lot of cereal! See? I can tell you the cereal that Walmart has!

" You really don't have t-" Fury started.

" There are puffins, peanut butter puffins, lucky charms, captain crunch, froot loops, honey bunches of oats, chocolate captain crunch, life," Clint looked at his fellow pranksters, he was running out of kinds of cereal. Tony quickly wrote down cereal to keep Clint going. " And frosted flakes, and cheerios, and raisin bra- " Clint stopped short to the sound of Fury hanging up on him, again.

" My- My turn Clint laughed." Pepper, truth or dare?"

"Mmmm… truth," Pepper decided.

" Okay, then, Pepper, who is the first person you ever slept with and when?" asked Clint.

"Hey! Hey you can't ask my fiancé such an intimate question!" Tony protested.

" Tony, telling us who the first person you ever slept with is not that much of a big deal." Bruce intervened.

" Yeah? Well then who was he first person you ever slept with?" Tony challenged.

Bruce turned bright red. " I didn't get the truth, so I don't have to answer your question,"

" Tony, it's fine." Pepper interrupted the debate. Everyone sat up, intent on hearing this. Who was the first person that Pepper Potts had f*cked?" it was Michael Reedling in freshman year of college. He was like, THE person to go at it with." Pepper fulfilled her truth. " Now, " Pepper smiled, already knowing who the next person would be an what she would do. " Bruce, truth or dare?"

Bruce wanted to save his pride and not wanting to embarrass himself " truth,"

" Judging by the color your face turned when Tony asked who the first person you ever slept with an when, here's my question," Pepper said, still smiling." Who was the first person you ever slept with and when?"

" Umm…." Bruce looked around, trying to avoid the question." It was Margaret Layton in my senior year." If it was even possible, Bruce turned even more red." I was really drunk, okay?" despite his reaction, Bruce didn't have _that _much to be embarrassed about, granted, out of all the Avengers, he was the last, not counting Steve, who was still a virgin.

" Okay, " Bruce breathed happy that his turn was over." Tony, truth or dare?"

"Dare,"

Bruce came up with the dare relatively fast." I dare you to go a month without drinking. Not a drop. And if you do, you have to sit through a documentary on what ever I chose without complaining."

" Sounds easy enough," Tony said nonchalantly. Then every single person in the room started noisily drinking their respective beverages. All alcoholic, save Steve, who decided to " just stick with lemonade". Tony paled, just realizing how long a month was.

" Well, there's only one person in the room who hasn't had a turn yet," Tony started, looking right at Natasha," Natasha, truth or dare?" Tony asked.

" Truth," Natasha replied no hesitation tainting her voice.

Tony thought; this was a rarity that Natasha would willingly give up secrets." Okay, who was the last person you dated and when did you break up?" Tony asked. Clint and Natasha had one of their split second silent conversations.

_Should we tell them? _

_Yeah, I guess it's now or never _replied Clint

_You sure?_ Clint gave the slightest of a nod in answer to Natasha's question.

" The… last person I dated was," Natasha hesitated." Was Clint," this brought an uproar.

" YOU AND LEGOLAS DATED?" Tony was the first to respond.

"I knew there was something there!" Pepper exclaimed.

" Spidey and Legolas dated! Spidey and Legolas dated!" Tony sang gleefully.

" Why ever did you break up?" asked Thor.

" Are you telling the truth? Most exes don't talk ever again and most certainly aren't partners," verified Steve.

" Yeah, how do we know your not lying?" asked Tony. " Clint, is it true that you and Natasha were together?"

Clint took a deep breath, " yes that is true," technically, it wasn't a lie.

" Well, you never told us why you broke up," Thor reminded.

" Yes, why did you guys break up? You two seem perfect together!" inquired Steve.

Half of them were looking at Natasha and the other half was looking at Clint.

"Hey, this was Natasha's dare!" Clint yelped. Dutifully NOT doing his job to help Natasha explain that they were still together.

" Well, the thing is… we're still together," this new piece of information brought another uproar.

After enduring an hour of questions and another hour of truth or dare, Natasha and Clint were finally rewarded with the tranquil silence of Natasha's bedroom.

" So, I guess we can finally stop pretending, huh?" whispered Clint.

" Yeah, guess so," no more words filled the air until the next morning, seeing as they both fell asleep.

**hope you liked it, i need some inspiration, so please, pleas review!**


	8. Chapter 8

**sorry it took me a while to update, It took me a while to find some inspiration, so please please review!**

" Anthony Edward Stark, when I find you, you are sooo dead" Natasha shrieked. "And I will find you." Not 2 minutes ago Natasha received a call from Tony. Everything was ordinary about that call, aside the particular detail that Natasha's ringtone now blared, " Spidey and Legolas are dating! Spidey and Legolas are dating!" repeatedly.

In his secret hidey hole that no one, not even Pepper, knew about, Tony's face turned milk white, about five shades paler than his regular complexion. He was sooo dead. Right before the wedding too! Though it was worth it. Natasha found Tony faster than he anticipated due to her enhanced phone that tracked the origin of the call.

" Found you," Natasha grinned.

" I – I don't know what your talking about," Tony stuttered with a fuming Natasha stood before him. Suddenly, Natasha grinned even wider. With that, she walked out, shutting the door behind her. Tony couldn't believe it. He had survived! But the way Natasha had smiled… she was planning revenge. Uh oh.

Tony's calendar on his phone marked the number of days until he could start drinking again. Only 1 more day to go! The previous weeks had been pure torture for Tony. The feeling of dread was Tony's constant companion as he walked into the kitchen to grab a snack before going back to the workshop. There, standing in his kitchen, drinking HIS $400 vodka was none other than Natasha Romanoff. When he looked in the trash, it became evident what Natasha's revenge was. She was drinking his numerous alcoholic beverages. Snack forgotten, Tony raced up to his floor. He was greeted by the sight of the empty bottles of his secret stash of emergency drinks spelling the word Revenge. Only one more day 'til he could start drinking again… and she had done this. It wasn't like Natasha could get drunk that easily, her enhancers prevented that. Oh, his life was in ruins.

In the kitchen, Natasha took out her phone and texted Clint.

Natasha: Wanna come help me drink Tony's stash?

Clint: certainly. REVENGE

Natasha: so he called u to?

Clint: yea

Natasha: we should make him sit through it

Clint: MUAHAHA

Clint was at S.H.I.E.L.D's HQ. This was the time of year he dreaded the most. It was his turn to train the new recruits. Self confident, ignorant, annoying B*st*rds. He was currently walking through the halls of S.H.I.E.L.D. when he arrived in the training room, the amiable chatter quieted to dead silence, this was the agent who had made the infamous Black Widow defect. The agent who had one of the highest success rates. The agent who had been under Loki's mind control before the battle of New York and survived. One half of Strike Team Delta, the most successful strike team in S.H.I.E.L.D history. Yes, Clint was somewhat of a legend at S.H.I.E.L.D.

" Alright recruits, today you are going to do a warm up, and then we'll begin." Clint absolutely hated training the newbies.

One recruit raised his hand." Sir, is it true that you slept with agent Romanoff?" this one as a bold one. Clint turned and glared at him.

" What is your name?"

" Tyler Maloney," Maloney said, "Sir." He added as an after thought.

" Recruit Maloney, why are you here?" asked Clint. He had only been in here for five minutes and they were already driving him crazy. Another two hours to go.

Maloney was silent for a while then said, " I'm here to train to become a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent sir."

" Then tell me what my romantic life has to do with your training?"

" Nothing sir, there are just some rumors going around," Maloney said. He just didn't know when to shut up.

" Well to put ease to these rumors going around about agent Romanoff and myself, I am not screwing agent Romanoff and never have." These morons were well past the middle school, so why were they still gossiping like them? Although Clint had told the truth about not f*cking Natasha, he still had those drunken moments when he wanted to.

" You're lucky it wasn't agent Romanoff who heard these rumors, she would find the people who started them and castrated them." Clint warned them. While the recruits were warming up with a five-mile run, Clint texted Natasha.

Clint: These cocky *ssholes are driving me crazy.

Natasha: HaHa I'm at the tower drinking. What rumors are going around about us now?

For several years, various rumors had come up about Clint and Natasha. Was the only reason Clint spared her was that they slept together? Were they married? Was he jealous that she seduced all these other men? Had she really slept with all the men in Russia and that was why she defected?

Clint: well… one of them just asked me if we were f*cking.

Natasha: not as bad as the time when one of them kept on trying- and failing to get me in bed with him.

" Okay people, we're going to play paintball." Clint said when they were done with their run. "You're going to divide into two teams. If you get hit in a vital organ, you're out. The last team standing wins."

" Well why do we have to be out when we get hit in a vital organ?" A recruit asked. He was clearly one of the okay, cocky, thick headed ones.

" Well," Clint started fake patiently while the majority of the class face palmed, "If I shot you in the kidney right now, would you be in any physical condition to continue to fight me?"

" No," with that misunderstanding cleared up, the recruits proceeded to split into two teams.

While Clint was busy terrorizing the recruits and Thor, Steve, and Bruce were helping plan the wedding, Natasha was enjoying a bottle of vodka.

" Stark, what is your *ss doing in my sight?" Natasha asked as Tony entered the room.

" You never did actually answer my question," Tony was forever curious.

" What question?"

" Oh don't play dumb, you know, your past," Tony saw through her ill covered lie. Natasha had survived 12 years in the red room, and up to 10 hours of torture and interrogation. But this was different; Tony was her friend, despite the love hate relationship they shared. He should know.

" Fine, I'll tell you some," Natasha resolved.

" YES I knew you would give in!" Tony sat down on a chair and stared intently at Natasha, rather resembling a 5 year old about to hear his favorite story.

" This is the short version," Natasha told him.

" Noooo! I want the long version," Tony pouted.

" Shut up or I won't tell you," Natasha threatened. Tony shut up. " When I was five, an organization called the red room burnt down my house, I was the only survivor. They took me and trained me to become who I am now. Whenever I went on a mission, they would brainwash me before so I did what ever they wanted. I would have no recollection of the mission, or anything for that matter." Natasha said, thinking about Loki's mind control over Clint. "They also injected me with enhancers, they make me just, better in general. Eventually, I escaped and started doing hits for anyone that would pay me. I got at the top of S.H.I.E.L.D's hit list. Clint was sent to kill, me, but he spared me instead."

" God Natasha makes my trip to Afghanistan seem like a picnic." Tony sympathized. He could only imagine the h*ll Natasha had gone through to get here.

" If you treat me like some fragile doll about to break, I will use this knife to gut you," Natasha despised sympathy. Just because she had practically gone through h*ll and back didn't mean she was any less bad*ss. Granted, half the time she had Clint to help her get through it.

" Earlier- you mentioned the girls you trained with," Tony asked," what happened to-"

" Question and answer time is over," Natasha's expression had turned to one of stone as she headed back to her room, thoughts of twelve dead 16 year old girls that she had killed to become the Black Widow. As she walked out, twelve shots were ringing in her ears. Natasha went down to the gym and shot the target dummies in the heart, just like her fellow red room recruits. By the time she finally went to bed it was 1 am. Natasha changed into her pajama's, which had similarly resembled her normal clothes and went to sleep, only to be plagued with nightmares.

_She was running through the streets of London. It was summer, tourist season. Natalia took a shortcut through the alley, hoping it would faze her pursuer. Despite having just run 2 miles in under 10 minutes, she was barely out of breath. She stopped short, the alley was a dead end._

" _You live up to your name, I'll give you that," a voice said from above. Natalia looked up, and there, standing on the fire escape, was her pursuer. _

"_чего__ты__хочешь__?" (What do you want?") Natalia spat. She was fluent in 15 different languages, but when she was upset or angry she always resorted back to her mother tongue, Russian._

" _Unfortunately, so do I," the man said, notching an arrow._

" _So America sent the infamous Hawkeye to kill me," Natalia growled. _

_Arrow aimed at her heart, Natalia flipped in the air and used the wall to launch herself at Hawkeye, knocking the bow from his grasp. Natalia drew a knife and threw it at his heart. He too, was agile, and was able to dodge in time. By now they were both on the ground, circling each other. Suddenly, she aimed a punch at him, but he blocked it. In retaliation, he kicked her in the stomach. Gritting her teeth, Natalia grabbed his foot and pulled him to the ground. He was up before she could kill him. As soon as they started really fighting, Hawkeye realized that her heart wasn't really in the fight; she didn't care what the outcome was. He had her in a headlock and she was struggling to get free. Her whole life, Natalia had fought to survive, but now? Now she didn't care to live any more. She gave up struggling against his arm. _

" _Do it," Natalia hissed. She looked up at him. Hawkeye looked in her eyes. There, even if she didn't realize it, was something. A pleading look, a look that told him that she was tired of working just for money and not for the 'good' side. Of course the other 95% of her expression was one of absolute hatred. He raised the gun to her head. She looked into his eyes as he pulled he trigger._

Natasha sat up in bed, eyes glassy. Clint wasn't supposed to have pulled the trigger. Still half way in a dream state, Natasha slid out of bed and walked towards Clint's room. When she got there, she slipped into his bed a fell into a dreamless sleep.

**do you like it? reviews are always appreciated!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Thanks for all the reviews. Here's the next chapter, hope you enjoy!**

"Romanoff, we need you at S.H.I.E.L.D. to interrogate someone.

" Yes sir, I'll be there in 20 minutes." Natasha was at the gym, so she still had to take a shower. After taking a two minute shower, Natasha was headed for S.H.I.E.L.D.

" Who is this guy?" asked Natasha.

" An undercover agent in Germany had told us that a man named Adrian Kruger is building a weapon of mass destruction. We managed to get one of his engineers, but he isn't telling us anything. We need you to interrogate him." Fury informed her as they walked down a S.H.I.E.L.D hallway.

" What's his name?"

" Fabian Hoffman,"

" Who're you?" Hoffman asked with a slight German accent. He had a defiant fire in his eyes.

" Natalie Riddle," Natasha answered. On the off chance that S.H.I.E.L.D. let this guy go, she didn't want her name known _everywhere._

Hoffman snorted," Oh great, they sent a woman to interrogate me,"

Natasha's eyes blazed with anger. Sexist Germans." Right now, I could kill you 9 different ways using only my body," Natasha threatened. Actually, she could kill him 15 different ways with just her body, but he didn't need to know that.

Natasha started with a seemingly simple question," Your name is Fabian Hoffman, correct?" Natasha asked.

" Yes," he answered, how much could he give away by telling her his name?

" How long have you been working for Kruger?"

After a half hour of silence from Hoffman, Natasha decided to back track to a more straightforward, unobtrusive question. " How's your wife and two year old son? I trust Kruger pays you well so you can support them,"

" How do you know about Mayra and Alecsander!" he exclaimed." F*ucking telepathic American psychopaths," he muttered.

Ignoring his comment, Natasha asked," How would you fell if Kruger were to activate a weapon of mass destruction, on, say, Munich?"

" He promised they would be safe!" Hoffman said, confirming that Kruger was, indeed building a weapon of mass destruction.

" What is this weapon?" Natasha asked, though Hoffman remained silent. " If you answer my questions, there is a _slim_ possibility that you don't go to jail." of course, as there was no crime, Hoffman couldn't legally go to jail, but he didn't seem to know that.

" A few years ago, we developed a serum that could cause the receiver susceptible to a lethal gas," Hoffman told her, "right now we're working on getting the chemical components for the gas."

" Why would Kruger want to develop a thing like that?"

Hoffman shrugged, " The world's technology is growing at rapid rate, we need to keep up."

" So all you have to do is inject the threat with this serum, and then you can kill them with an otherwise harmless gas?" Clarified Natasha.

" Even better, the hospitals are going to inject everyone with it, so we can use it all the time," Hoffman gloated at their own genius.

" Has Kruger released it yet?"

" No, they still need to touch it up it should be ready in about a month. There was a catch though, only one person could activate the gas, so naturally, Kruger made it himself."

Natasha had all she needed." Kruger built a serum that would make the receiver susceptible to an otherwise lethal gas," Natasha reported to Fury.

Fury nodded, " Did he say when he planned on activating it? Who is he going to inject?"

" They plan on injecting it to everyone apparently, through the hospitals in about a month."

" We may need you on a mission, so stay alert," Fury dismissed her.

Back at the tower, Clint was only just getting up, having slept in until 9:45. Meanwhile, Pepper was busy planning the wedding.

" Hey Nat, you done for the day?" Pepper asked.

Natasha shrugged, " Probably," you never had vacations in that business. Sure, you got days _off,_ but if there was a threat and only you could eliminate it, you couldn't just say " sorry, I'm on vacation in Hawaii, can't make it,"

"Jarvis, tell Tony to come up here right now. Right Now!" Pepper instructed.

" How's the planning going?" Natasha asked.

Pepper sighed," Stressful. For three days. Three days! I've been trying to get Tony to say if he wants his third cousin and my coworker to come.

" Hey Pep, what'd you want?" Tony had arrived, oblivious to Pepper's frustration.

" Do you want your third cousin, Gary something or other and Drake Mcdold from Stark Industries to come?"

" Okay… How about you decide and I g back to the workshop, I'm kinda in the middle of something right now." Tony said, starting his way back to the workshop. he was actually writing his vows, but he didn't really know what to write. Needless to sya, he had been procrastinating.

" Anthony, you are not going anywhere until you make a decision!" Pepper thundered. She was in the " use the full name" frustration stage.

" Okay, Okay, invite Gary but not Drake,"

" Good, it only took you 72 hours to say those 7 words." Pepper grumbled. " Okay Natasha, I could use your opinion on the color theme: red and robin's egg blue? Or yellow and pale red, pink? I think you bridesmaids might look better in the red and red and blue, but the flower girl and the best man would look better in the pink and yellow."

" Red and robin's egg blue," Natasha decided, after a moment of contemplation.

Now in her room, Natasha thought back to the previous night's dream, nightmare.

" _Do it," Natalia hissed. She looked up at him. Hawkeye looked in her eyes. There, even if she didn't realize it, was something. A pleading look, a look that told him that she was tired of working just for money and not for the 'good' side. Of course the other 95% of her expression was one of absolute hatred. Clint raised the gun to her head. After a moment of him in that position, he lowered it.  
><em>

_"Come to S.H.I.E.L.D, you have undeniable talent, you'd have an out, from this," he gestured, meaning the ruthless lifestyle she led. " At S.H.I.E.L.D. you get the reason why you have to kill the target,"_

_"Then why were you sent to kill me?" Hissed Natalia._

_" Well, you have committed a dozen assassinations in the past 2 months and over 75 in the past year, you're becoming a problem." _

_" And why the h*ll should I trust you?"_

_" You shouldn't, but right now I'm giving you a choice, join S.H.I.E.L.D. or I'll kill you, right here, in this alley."_

_Natalia thought about it, her whole life it was either kill or be killed. For once in her 18 years of living, she wanted to do good. She wanted to go straight, to have a fresh beginning. " If I go with you, what would happen?"_

_" Well as soon as we got to base, there would be a ton of guns pointed at you. Then my boos would yell at me until his face got red. You would probably be placed in a cell and interrogated. If the council approves, you would then become a recruit at S.H.I.E.L.D. and then progress to an agent." He said._

_Her shoulders slumped," Fine I'll go with you,"_

Weirdly enough, Clint was the first person she had ever trusted. For practically the first 18 years of her life, she had been taught to trust nobody. Every night, until she had learned her lesson, five nights, the red room dragged her awake , placed her in a chair, and beat her until they felt that she had had enough, generally an hour. She was 7 at the time. as a result, She didn't trust anyone for the next 13 and a half years, she didn't trust anyone. Now she trusted 8 people; Clint, Coulson, Fury, Steve, Bruce, Thor, Pepper, and despite their love hate relationship, Tony.

** Tell me what you think and if you have any plot suggestions. Reviews and constructive criticism is welcome.  
><strong>


	10. Chapter 10

**thanks to hopelessromantic 1599 and blonde4ever for reviewing. our wifi went all weird so i couldn't update this as soon as I wished :(**

" Clint, Fury wants us at the helicarrier by 8:00," get up.

"Tash, it's too early," Clint groaned.

" Get up, it's 7:30 and it takes ten minutes to get to the helicarrier, so get your *ss out of bed," Natasha started pelting him with pillows.

* * *

><p>" Your target is Adrian Kruger. You are to eliminate him. Intelligence tells us that he 's building weapons of mass destruction. For what purpose, we don't know. He has a sh*tload of security, so be careful," Fury told them. After finally getting his *ss out of bed, Clint and Natasha were at the helicarrier. "You leave tonight at 1600."<p>

" Yes sir," they simultaneously said.

" So how long do you think this one will take?" Natasha asked. They were back at the tower, packing.

" I dunno, maybe two, three weeks?"

" Pepper would kill us if we're not there for the wedding," Natasha said," it's in two and a half weeks."

30 minutes later, they were in Natasha's corvette on their way to the S.H.I.E.L.D airport. They were both in there traveling outfits; Natasha wearing a red blouse, jeans, and her black leather jacket and Clint wearing his jeans, shirt, and jacket. Considering it was night and tomorrow they would have to be 100% alert, they both slept, her head on his shoulder and his head positioned on her head. Luckily, it was only them and Coulson in the jet, excluding the pilot. Coulson was asleep so they didn't have to hide their affection. Though it wasn't much.

" Rise and shine sleepy heads," Natasha said to both Clint and Coulson, both of whom were both still sleeping.

" It's too early," Clint was only awake for one more coherent thought," I need some coffee..."

Coulson, now awake, glanced at Natasha. They had both flied numerous times with Clint. Every time he woke up, he needed coffee. He had a strange addiction to the substance. Should they let him have some of it now? There were still 30 minutes to go and they didn't bring as much as they usually did…

" Come on, we have coffee," Natasha rose Clint by shoving him out of his chair. 30 strenuous minutes later of a certain occupant (Clint) grumbling of not having a sufficient amount of coffee, they landed.

In Germany, it was 7:00 am, an ungodly hour of the day. Clint and Natasha had nothing else to do, so they went to a diner and got some coffee (Clint's) and falafels. Stomach full of coffee and falafels, they went ot thir hotel and checked in.

" Name," the reception lady asked Clint. They had decided to go in 9 minutes apart, as their covers were not acquainted.

" David Hallerd,"

" Where are you coming from?" the lady was curious.

Clint sighed, as if he was tired from traveling, " New york,"

" I've always wanted to visit New york." she said a bit wistfully, "Your room number is 206."

9 minutes and 47 seconds later, Natasha walked in, suitcase in hand.

"Einem Raum bitte," (one room please) Natasha requested.

"Einen Moment," ( one moment) the reception lady responded. "Was ist Ihr Name?" (what is you name?)

" Margo Hertz,"

"Ihre Zimmernummer ist 204" (you room number is 204)

" Danke," (thank you) Natasha thanked. When she got to her room, Natasha noticed that the door adjoining her to room 206 was already unlocked.

"Really, Clint?" Natasha called

" They should really have better locks, I cracked this one in... 48 seconds," They got adjoining rooms? What a coincidence.

Strangely, Natasha's nightmares weren't as bad when she was on an mission. Regardless, she still had nightmares, though the fact that Clint was in the next bedroom over did help.

Over the next four days, Clint and Natasha simply observed their target. By the fifth day, they recognized two patterns in Kruger's otherwise erratic lifestyle. One was that Kruger went to the bar by his mansion every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Number two was that every night at 7:30 pm, he went for a walk around his courtyard. By the ninth day, Clint and Natasha had devised a plan.

It was Tuesday, Natasha walked onto the pub that Kruger went to. As seducing Kruger was a crucial part of the plan, Natasha wore a blood red dress that complimented her hair, and black stilettos. Kruger was already there, flirting with some other sl*t. Natasha walked over to the bar.

" One scotch," Natasha ordered. Kruger had been eyeing her the moment she had walked into the bar, now, now he was walking towards her.

" Whatever she got, put it on my tab," Kruger said. He was a well looking man, he was tall and had black hair, his face seemed to portray an air of confidence.

" Oh thank you," Natasha said. Before he could talk to her any more, she walked away.

" What the h*ll was that? why'd you walk away? He was obviously into you," Clint exclaimed through their comms. He had watched her seduce men for nearly 8 years, one would think he would have caught on to her tactics by now.

" If you act like your not interested, it'll make him want you even more, In the long run, it'll make things faster," Natasha explained. She had been taught the art of seducing by the age of 14.

When she returned to the bar not five minutes later, Kruger was still watching her.

" What is your name Madame?" He asked, leaning against the bar.

" I'm Margo, you are?"

"My name is Adrian Kruger, perhaps you've heard of me,"

"Indeed I have, Mr. Kruger," Adrian Kruger was a wealthy, we'll know business man, aside from constructing weapons of course.

" Call me Adrian. So, what do you do for a living? Surely such a pretty girl has a job,"

"Of course, I'm a waitress at a bakery here in Munich."

Kruger leaned over and whispered," If it's too crowded in here, my house is not far,"

"It is a bit noisy in here," Natasha accepted his invitation.

Knowing Clint would follow them via the rooftops, Natasha got in Kruger's limo.

" Not fair, you get to ride in a limo, while I have to run to follow you," Clint complained.

In response, Natasha smirked my ever so slightly, looking out the window. When she turned back toward Kruger, he immediately started kissing her. Hiding her disgust, Natasha passionately kissed him back. Not long after, they had arrived at Kruger's mansion.

" There is no one I'd rather be with right now, than you," they were in Kruger's room.

" There's no one _ I _would rather be with," Natasha whispered.

" But I bet our reasons are different,"Kruger said as he sat up, brandishing a gun " So, why are you and your partner following me?"

**so, Kruger knows that Clint and Natasha have been following him! Sorry not sorry for the cliff hanger. Reviews are always appreciated!**


	11. Chapter 11

**So here's another chapter to put you at ease. Please review and tell me what you think!**

Kruger's first mistake that day was leaving his donut out on the counter; his assistant had wandered by and had consumed it without second thought. It was his favorite too- jelly filled glaze. His second mistake that day was pointing a gun at Natasha Romanoff while she was in close proximity.

Getting no answer, Kruger said, " I repeat, why have you and your partner been follow-" while he was still talking, Natasha had moved up next to him and had indulged herself by removing him from his weapon whilst kicking him in the stomach.

" How the h*ll did you know we were following you?" Kruger was not inclined to respond, a result of his recently emptied lungs. Still getting no response, Natasha hoisted him off the ground and pressed a knife to his neck.

" Mole… in S.H.I.E.L.D….told us," he gasped. The thought of a premature demise does, occasionally, loosen tongues.

" There's a mole in S.H.I.E.L.D?" Natasha asked. Kruger nodded. Before she could question him further however, he reach down to his wrist and pressed a button on his watch. Suddenly, an explosion shook the floor. Natasha could feel the foundations shaking. Looking through the window, Natasha saw that the building adjacent to them had exploded. All that remained was a mountain of rubble. That was the building Clint was on.

" Clint!" Natasha screamed as she ran to the window, leaving Kruger.

Through her comm she heard nothing but static. She watched helplessly as the remainder of the building crumbled. There was no way he could have survived that. Natasha turned back to Kruger, who now possessed his gun. It was aimed at her. He was more than her mission now. He was Clint's revenge. Natasha dove as he pulled the trigger, pulling out another knife. Needless to say, he missed. Before he could shoot she had thrown it at his shoulder with deadly accuracy. She had purposely not killed him as to cause him as much pain as she felt. Though he would never, in the short remainder of his life, ever feel the pain Natasha felt. Nothing was stronger than love, but nothing could hurt as much as love. She had fallen in love with Clint Barton. She had been compromised. Kruger had brought out the true Black Widow.

" Who is the mole?" she growled.

Kruger coughed, " Her name is…"

" Who is it?" Natasha took one of her guns and shot him in the leg.

Screaming, Kruger said the name, " Hilary Tamass," as a reward for his cooperation, Natasha shot him in the heart, but not before stabbing him in the stomach. Wiping the blood off her hands and retrieving her knives, Natasha stalked out of the room.

" Romanoff, check in, the comms went off, but we just got them back up again," Coulson said, unaware of the recent events.

" Kruger is dead. There is a mole in S.H.I.E.L.D, her name is Hilary Tamass. The building Clint was on exploded, his comm is off." Natasha was on autopilot.

" I'm sending a search team right now, we'll meet at the rendezvous point." Coulson said. Natasha however, had different plans.

Coughing, Natasha progressed through the rubble.

" Romanoff! Where are you?" Coulson said, after Natasha had been searching for 10 minutes.

" Finding Barton. And when I do I'm going to kick his *ss for doing this to me," Natasha muttered.

Coulson, realizing that Natasha would not leave Germany without Clint, decided to change the rendezvous point wherever she was." We're on our way,"

Natasha searched for another 10 minutes before Coulson arrived.

" Natasha, you need to get back to base," He said, though it was soon apparent that Natasha was not listening to him anymore.

" Coulson, I am looking for my boy- partner," Natasha stopped herself from saying boyfriend, though he didn't seem to notice, " and I have absolutely no intention of leaving Germany until he is found. I don't give d*mn what the council is going to say, I am NOT going anywhere until I have found my dumb*ss partner, who decided to do THIS to me." Natasha was on a rampage.

Coulson was only half listening to what Natasha was saying as he was simultaneously listening to Fury through his comm. The ability to listen to 2 people at once was a necessity he had developed after 7 years of being Clint _and_ Natasha's handler "Natasha, go back to base, that's a direct order from Fury." Coulson said," Don't worry, we will find him,"

But Natasha did worry. The whole flight back she didn't sleep a bit, despite the fact that she was sleep deprived._ D*mmit Clint don't do this to me, you're not allowed to. I will find you and kick your *_ss for doing this to me. You are NOT allowed to f*cking disappear on me like this.

" How was the mission?" Steve asked as Natasha walked into he tower. Natasha glared at him in response.

" My f*cking boyfriend was on a building that exploded and they haven't found him yet. No, Steve, the god*mned mission did not go well," Natasha snapped. She knew it wasn't Steve's fault for the explosion, but she was so angry and hurt and worried that she didn't even know the difference anymore. She needed to yell.

" I'm sure they'll find him," Steve comforted. all the swearing seemed to make him uncomfortable. Natasha walked to her room, eyes not looking anywhere. It had been 12 hours… 12 hours... And they had not found him.

That night, Clint's absence was everywhere. No one to spar with… no one to prank Tony with… and most importantly, no one to help with her nightmares.

_She was on a mission for the red room. This one led her to America. Her target was Zackary Mcgroom, he was the heir to a major trading business with Russia. But rumor had it he had different plans; he was going to expose Russia's illegal importing and exporting business. Currently, he worked at a bank in New York. He was 21 years old, and recently single. She could feel the plane touch down with a bump. The moment she stepped out of the airport, her senses were assaulted. That fried food smell, gas, cigarette smoke, sirens wailing, car horns blowing, people yelling, the general buzz of life; a metropolitan city._

" _Taxi!" she called._

" _Where would you like to go?" The taxi driver asked._

" _The Ritz Carlton on 2 West Street," she rarely stayed at a hotel less than 4 stars. The driver nodded in response. A bonus was that Mcgroom had been kicked out of his apartment by his recently exed-girlfriend, so he was staying in the room across the hall that she was in. Being the heir to a successful business had its perks._

_After a luxurious night at the Ritz, she was now at breakfast. Mcgroom was sitting at 2 tables down. She could smell his cologne from here. She could also smell his shampoo and hear him chew his pancakes. Courtesy of her enhancers. She waited until he went back up to his room. Slipping unnoticed into an employees only room, she made her way to the maids' room. She found a maid outfit and proceeded to dawn it. The soft material brushed against her skin. Next, she grabbed a cart and made for the elevator. Once she reached Mcgroom's floor, she got off. The elevator abruptly stopped, causing it to jerk._

" _Room service," she called._

" _Come in, I'm just about to leave," his muffled voice carried through the doorway. She took keys and unlocked his door. With his back turned, she took out her gun. The metal was cool in her hand. Routinely, she clicked the safety off. The click caused him to turn around. She hesitated. In that hesitation, Mcgroom had bounded up next to her and kicked the gun from her grasp. D*mn Intel, they failed to mention that minor detail of him being a skilled fighter. Her trainers; voices rung in her ears "Never underestimate your opponent". As it turned out, they purposely didn't tell her about his fighting skills._

_He aimed a punch at her head, but she ducked. She could hear his fist whistle past her ear. She kicked his knee, causing him to stumble. In retaliation, he punched her in the stomach. She could feel his fist collide with her stomach. There was going to be a bruise there. Now up on his feet, he pulled her arm backward, nearly breaking it. She could feel her arm snap as he continued to push it. If he thought that could deter her, he thought wrong. She fell to the ground, kicking his feet from under him. She took out a knife and carelessly threw it at him; it embedded itself in his heart. Tearing off the maid's outfit, she walked out of the room, cradling her broken arm. She knew she could not favor her good arm in any way when she arrived back at the red room._

_ **hope you enjoyed it :)****Please please review as it helps me update more often.**_


	12. Chapter 12

** Sorry that this is a shorter chapter, but i couldn't think of anything else i wanted to add. BTW who else thinks they should do a Budapest movie with Clint and Natasha in it? I would die if they did something like that. Anyways, hope you enjoy and please review :)**

S.H.I.E.L.D. was in chaos, their master marksman was MIA and there was a mole on S.H.I.E.L.D, Hilary Tamass. After 5 hours of intense interrogation, Tamass finally confessed that yes, she did join S.H.I.E.L.D. to spy on them.

" Who were you reporting to?" Natasha asked.

Tamass' eyes glazed over," Adrian Kruger,"

" Why did Kruger send you here?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. was keeping closer tabs on our progress, we needed to stay ahead,"

30 more minutes after Tamass broke, Natasha had all the answers S.H.I.E.L.D. needed.

* * *

><p>Natasha didn't leave her room for three days after the explosion. She ate next to nothing and rarely slept. Finally, on the fourth day, she went to S.H.I.E.L.D. to see if there was an update on him. Him, Clint. He had been MIA for 6 days. Coulson had promised her that he would call her whatever the time if they found him, but she went anyway<em>. " I will always come back for you, I promise,"<em> his promise was rung in her ears.

" Anything new?" Natasha asked Coulson.

" We found his bow in the northeast corner of the rubble, but other than that, there's nothing."

Natasha nodded," Tell me if they find anything else."

Though all the tower occupants tried to sympathize with Natasha, none of them understood how she felt.

" He'll show up," Pepper said, she was on hold with the caterer for the wedding. The wedding. The wedding was in 10 days." I mean, Tony was gone in Afghanistan for 22 days and 9 hours. It's only been 6 days. He'll show up."

" Yeah," Natasha said with a false smile as she tried to convince herself," And when he does I'm going to kick his *ss for doing this to me."

Pepper smiled, "Yeah,"

" Pepper, you weren't even dating Tony when he was in Afghanistan and yet you know how long he was gone, down to the minute I bet." Natasha realized," How long did you like Tony like _that _until you started dating?"

" I didn't like him like _that_ until after you showed up at Stark Industries, he just…. kind of grows on you, y'know?" Pepper confessed.

Natasha smiled her first genuine smile since the explosion, albeit it was a small, wistful smile " Yeah, I know."

" So, I've narrowed it down to 3 dresses and I was wondering if you could help me pick one." Pepper hung up the phone and changed the subject. Being engaged to a billionaire had its benefits; Pepper had no limits on anything.

" Yeah sure," Natasha said.

The first dress was eggshell white and was snug at the waist, but flared out at the bottom. The second dress was strapless with pearls adorning the side. And the third one was an eggshell white strapless dress with white jewels in the front and a long, gauze like bottom.

" You should wear either wear that one," Natasha gestures to the one with pearls, "or that one," she gestured to the first one.

" Hmm… I can't decide," Pepper said," We should ask Jane. When Jane arrived, Pepper established the dilemma.

" Well, my favorite is that one," Jane pointed to the first one," But I think you would look best in that one," Jane decided, indicating to the one with pearls.

" Okay, I'll wear that one," Pepper breathed a sigh of relief.

" Just don't show Tony what you're wearing, I forbid it" Jane said, her tone making it clear she was not to be contradicted.

" It's supposed to be bad luck if the groom sees the bride on their wedding day," Natasha explained.

That night was movie night. With no Clint to argue with, Tony declared that they were going to watch Stardust. They were now at the scene where Lamia sets the trap for Yvaine. With fire. Fire.

_Smoke was everywhere._

"_Мама__?" (Mama?") she coughed. Panic started to take hold of her. She stumbled, but was soon deterred by a curtain of fire in her doorway. Suddenly, a shot rang out._

"_Наталья__! __выйти__, __бе-__!"(Natalia! Get out, r-!) Her mother's voice cried, but stopped short when another shot rang._

""_Мама!"(__Mama__!) __Natalia cried. Tripping, she blindly made her way across the bedroom she had occupied for her 5 years of life. She reached the window. She flung it open and was greeted by a gust of pure, cold Russian wind. Her bedroom was on the second story of their house. The need to survive overcame Natalia as adrenaline washed over her and she climbed out her window without second thought. Only 5 years old, Natalia could only hold onto the ice-cold gutter she was hanging from for only so long. Bracing herself, she dropped the next 6 feet. Her feet collided with the ground and her knees bent to help absorb the shock._

_From behind a tree, a man was watching her whole escape._

" _I want this one, she has potential." Ivan rasped in his radio. Soon, the fire truck sirens drew closer to the Romanova house. By the time they arrived, the house was burnt to the ground and Natalia was gone, assumed to be dead like her parents._

Natasha returned to the present from her flashback. The red room had burnt down her house and shot her parents. Just because they thought she had potential. It turned out they were right, but at the cost of her parents' lives.

The next day, Natasha went to the S.H.I.E.L.D. base to shoot. The shooting range was as good as the one at the tower, but there, Natasha could arrive faster if there was news of Clint. Shot after shot, Natasha hit the dummy in the heart, imagining it was Kruger. Still, after 7 days, they had only found his bow.

**Soooo, did you like it? Clint's still missing and Tony and Pepper's wedding is approaching. as always, please please please review, it really help me update faster.**


	13. The Wedding

**I already had this chapter written, so that's why I updated so soon. hope you enjoy and please please review and tell me what you think :)**

It was July 21; Pepper and Tony's wedding day. Clint had been missing for 16 days and 7 hours. Even if he was found in the next 2 hours and 13 minutes, the probability that he would be in any condition to attend was less than 6%.

" Oh my god Pepper, you look gorgeous," Natasha gushed.

For Tony and Pepper's sake, she decided that today she was going to be happy, despite the continuing absence of her boyfriend. Pepper was wearing her wedding gown. Her strawberry blonde hair was curled and in a complicated but elegant half braid. Natasha, Jane, Darcy, and Pepper's cousin, Macy, all wore red dresses that fit them perfectly.

" You sure you're okay? I mean with Clint gone and all…" even on her wedding day, Pepper never was always looking out for other people.

" Pepper Potts, wow soon it'll be Pepper Stark… that is going to be _weird_"

" I'm going to keep Potts,"

" Anyways, Pepper Potts, you are getting married today, _I_ should be the one asking if you're okay! Are you okay?" By now, Jane, Darcy, and Macy were all present, amiably chattering.

"Yes of course! How could I not be!" the moment Pepper had been dreaming of her whole life was happening. She was getting married to an amazing guy. Granted he _was_ Tony Stark…

" I'm okay, but what about you?" Natasha's carefree expression never wavered. She had had lots of practice portraying an emotion whilst not actually feeling that particular emotion. She was a superb actress.

" I'm fine, honestly Pepper, it's your wedding day, hopefully it's your only one if you get what I mean…" Natasha joked.

But deep down, no matter how many "I'm fines," or " I'm okays," she said, she still missed Clint like crap. He was her everything and he wasn't there. She missed him so much.

Pepper laughed," Yeah I hope it is. The planning just about killed me,"

" Pepper, the ceremony is going to start in 10 minutes, just a heads up," Pepper's aunt reported.

" Okay, thanks Aunt Teresa,"

" Any last minute things I could get you?"

" No, no I think we're all good. Thanks anyways though," Pepper was forever polite.

"Your wedding's going to be amazing," Jane smiled.

" Yeah, how could it not?" Macy added. Macy shared Pepper's willowy frame and pale complexion, but her hair and eyes were brown.

"Thanks," Pepper smiled back.

" Go get 'em," Darcy said in her energetic and somehow cute sardonic voice.

" … And so do you, Anthony Stark, take Pepper Potts to be you lawfully wedded wife?" It was dead silent, save for the mothers and grandmothers who were trying and failing to discreetly cry.

" I do," Tony said.

" Do you, Pepper Potts, take Anthony Stark to be you lawfully wedded husband?"

Pepper smiled," I do,"

" You may kiss the bride," Tony and Pepper kissed for a good minute before breaking apart and grinning.

" I wish I had something like that," Steve confessed, watching Tony gaze lovingly at Pepper who was talking to another guest. They were dancing. Since Clint was gone, Steve filled in for him by entering the ceremony with her. It was Natasha and Steve, Jane and Thor, Darcy and Bruce, and Macy and Rhodey.

" Did you ever?" Natasha asked.

" Well there was this one girl, Peggy Carter," Steve said her name with a dreamy look in his eyes.

" You met her during the war, right?" Natasha clarified.

" Yes, she's 89 now. She got married after I went under,"

" Well, Captain, I think it's time to start getting back out there before you reach 90, they tend not to go for the old guys, but I bet they'll make an exception for you." Natasha advised," There're plenty of nice girls out there, or guys," she added as an after thought.

" Ummm," Steve's face turned red.

" I was kidding…. I was kidding,"

Steve calmed down," It's just… that kinda stuff wasn't as normal in the 70's,"

Natasha snorted, " Adrianna from engineering seems nice, you should ask her out some time," getting no response Natasha pressed some more," unless you already have you eye on someone…"

" She's an agent… Sharon, we met last Friday at the gym."

Natasha raised an eyebrow, "Oooh,"

With Tony and Pepper on their honeymoon in Greece, that left Natasha, Steve, Bruce, Thor, Jane, and Darcy occupying the tower. There was a remarkable reduction in noise with Tony gone.

Even though it only 6:00 pm, Natasha was tired. Tired from worrying about Clint, he needed to get his *ss home...tired from acting enthusiastic, though she was happy for Pepper and Tony… tired from everyone asking her if she was okay… tired from saying she was okay… tired of pretending she was okay... She fell asleep on the couch.

" _Your target is Fernando Souza, he is the leader of the Souza incorporation. Kill Souza and cripple his organization. Your plane to Sao Paulo leaves in 1 our," Ivan told her the Red Room's next target. As she grew older, Ivan gave less and less information. _

" _Yes sir,"_

_She was on the plane now. The guy next to her was trying to subtly hit on her._

" _Did hurt when you fell from heaven?"_

'_If you think I'm from heaven or going to go to heaven when I die, you have no idea how wrong you are' Thought Natalia. He had no idea who he was hitting on. After an hour, her icy demeanor finally deterred him. After uncountable hours of sitting next to the imbecile, the plane finally touched down. Brazil was hot and muggy in July. Compared to Russia, Brazil was an oven. She was only in Sao Paulo for 1 day before she had acquired all the information that she needed and what she was going to do to eliminate her target._

_She was sitting on the rooftop 4 blocks from Souza's building, she had an adequate view of Souza's building. He had just walked back into his building from his lunch break. She smiled as he entered the building. She pressed a button her wrist, the hard plastic submitting to her pressing thumb. 5..4..3..2..1. The armed bomb in the building exploded. A wave of the explosion's heat swept through her, adding to the natural heat of Sao Paulo. Everything within a quarter mile was decimated. Pleased with her work she climbed down the stairs, her plane for Russia left in 2 hours, she had a plane to catch. Amidst all the pandemonium, no one noticed the petite redhead making her way to the airport._

" Natasha? You okay?" Steve's voice broke through her nightmare.

" What...?" Natasha mumbled blearily.

" You were asleep on the couch," Bruce explained. " And then you started muttering,"

" What was I saying?" she was fully awake now.

Steve shrugged," We couldn't tell," no matter how hard she tried to hide it, Natasha had a haunted look in her eyes.

" Are you okay?" Bruce said in his gentle voice.

Natasha shrugged," Nightmare,"

" You wanna talk about it? You seem pretty shaken up," Steve asked. It was true, she looked incredibly shaken. She had lived by herself for 10 years, only in the last 5 months had she actually shared a residence with other people.

" Okay," she said, sitting up on the couch and hugging her knees." An organization named the Red Room sent me on a mission in Sao Paulo. I assume you were listening when I was interrogating Loki?"

" Yeah," they both admitted.

" Well, I was sent to cripple an organization. I bombed their headquarters. That bomb killed 68 people and the majority were innocents. At the time, I didn't care, but now, its just, how could I have killed 68 people without second thought?"

" Well, the first time the Other Guy took over, he killed 13 people and injured 34," Bruce said, understandingly. But he didn't understand. Those were the only innocent people he had thoughtlessly killed.

" You've changed," Steve comforted. They were all sitting on the couch by now.

" Granted, they did brainwash me,"

" They brainwashed you?" Bruce was incredulous.

" They went to an extensive effort to get what they wanted, so they brainwashed me whenever I was sent on a mission to make sure I didn't mess up,"

" God Natasha, that's awful," Bruce sympathized.

Under normal circumstances, Natasha despised any form of sympathy or condolence, but now she simply wasn't in the mood to contradict with any one, much less her friends. She walked toward the gym, not wanting to see any more of Steve or Bruce's shocked reactions. Her kill count was 209. The majority of those deaths were innocent bystanders. Though, the number had gone down considerably after she had defected and joined S.H.I.E.L.D.

**So, Tony and Pepper are married now and Clint hasnt been found :0. also, thanks to queenlmno, GingerRavenclaw, hopelessromantic1599, and Blonde4forever for reviewing, it really helps me. So, please review**


	14. Chapter 14

**Sorry I didn't update sooner, we went out of town for a while. anyways, thank you to queenlmno, hopelessromantic 1599, Blonde4ever, and JWolf 28 for reviewing :). hope you like it!**

**Natasha's POV**

_She was bound to a table. Both her arms and legs were completely incapacitated with sturdy, metal cuffs. The metal was digging into her skin, it was going to leave red marks. She was in the red room. _

" _Natalia, why are you here?" Ivan questioned. She remained stubbornly silent, eyes shooting daggers. " Fine, I will answer that question for you. You failed to eliminate your target and now he knows he is on some hit list. You have failed Mother Russia." Ivan's cold eyes pierced through her like knives. He nodded at three other guards, " Dunk her," and with that, he left the room. She felt a needle pierce her skin as they injected her with a tranquilizer that would make her weak, unable to fight back. All her sensed would still be in perfect use though, which was what they counted on. When she as fully injected, they undid the cuffs and recuffed her when she was off the table. She couldn't move anything, much less fight back. Their hands pressed on her shoulders. A searing pain crossed through her left shoulder, she had been shot there. They continued putting pressure on her shoulders and she was finally forced to her knees. In front of her was large bucket containing water. Their cold, meaty hands grabbed her neck. Suddenly, her head was submerged in water. The feeling of complete and utter helplessness overcame her. She couldn't breathe, her lungs were on fire. Finally, they jerked her head up again, none too gentle. One gasp of air and they put her under again. She was going to die this-_

Natasha sat up, shivering, from her nightmare. It was 1:57. The answer to her premature awakening was the incessant, unrelenting ringing of her phone. The caller ID read Coulson.

" Hello," Natasha greeted sleepily, it was, after all, 1:58 in the morning. But, Natasha Romanoff was used to these untimely nighttime occurrences.

" Natasha, we found him," Coulson could not have said any other phrase in any known language to get Natasha up faster.

" I'm on my way, I'll be there in 10," Natasha hung up and quickly dawned clothes, a form fitting, green shirt, black jeans, and her black leather jacket. 9 minutes and 12 seconds later, Natasha walked into S.H.I.E.L.D.

" Where is he?" Natasha demanded.

" He's in the OR, some minimal internal bleeding, 2 broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and numerous cuts and what not," Coulson informed her. Nothing he couldn't handle.

" Where was he?"

" We found him trapped under a hunk of metal. Our heat sensors didn't pick him up because the metal covered his body, so there was no heat signature. We found him manually."

" He's going to make it, right?"

" The chances of him making it through are more than 94%, he should be fine," Natasha breathed a sigh of relief. After 18 days, 7 hours, and 48 minutes, Clint was back again. He was Okay. He was going to be okay._ He's going to make it through all right; he survived the explosion so he can survive this surgery. D*mmit Clint, why the h*ll did you have to do this to me? _Natasha thought. Clint made it through. He had been in surgery for a little less than an hour. Natasha followed the nurse who was rolling him along in his rolly bed. Her ears didn't seem to work anymore. The stark white walls were blinding, but she didn't care, she only focused on Clint's body. Natasha watched him until he woke up.

His breathing skipped a beat, "Clint, I know you're up now, it's just me here, so open you god*mn eyes and tell me you're okay," Natasha said, tears threatening to come.

Clint opened his eyes," Hey Tash, I'm okay, can I have some coffee?" Clint would forever need his coffee. Natasha breathed a sigh of relief and poured Clint his coffee. He had gone 18 days without the substance, that was a new record for him. Clint looked around, " What time's it?

" Almost 5 in the morning," Natasha answered. " Why the h*ll did you have to be on that building?"

" What happened?"

" Kruger knew who we were and was just playing us and-"

" Well, I know that part, " Clint complained, sipping his coffee. He hadn't changed a bit.

" And he set off a bomb in the building you were on. You were missing for 18 DAYS Clint. 18 god*mn DAYS, you could have at least called."

Clint chuckled," Well, I wasn't exactly conscious," he said, "I would have if I could have though," he added hastily upon seeing his girlfriend's expression. " Oh Sh*t, I missed the wedding didn't I?" Natasha nodded mutely in response. Still not saying anything, Natasha climbed into his bed, despite the fact that there was barely any room for her, put her head on his chest, and closed her eyes. It was a sort of tradition for them. Whenever one of them was hospitalized the other refused to leave their side until they could both leave.

"Coulson, you should probably alert the others to let them no he's okay," Fury instructed.

" Yes sir, I will give them a call,"

" Have you seen Natasha?" Steve asked Thor," I wanted to ask her if she wanted to join me at the gym,"

Thor shook his head," NAGHH I HAF NOT SEEEEN HERGH," Thor was busy eating 4 poptarts while he simultaneously answered the question.

" Thanks anyway, I'll check her room,"

" Okay," Thor had finished his poptarts with one, mighty gulp.

" Natasha?" Steve asked, knocking on her door. In her haste to get to S.H.I.E.L.D, Natasha had forgotten to lock her door, Steve cautiously opened it. Previously, when Steve had been in Natasha's room, a total three and a half times (Steve had once stuck half his body in her room), her room had been neat and orderly, bed made and clothes put in their proper place. This time however, clothes were strewn across the floor, carelessly thrown, and her bed was not made. A result of Clint's absence he supposed. Steve had just wandered back in the kitchen when the tower phone rang.

" Hello?" Steve asked.

" Steve, this is agent Coulson, we have found Clint and he's alive and okay. Fury just wanted me to let you guys know,"

" Clint's alive? He's okay?"

" Yes, you can come over,"

"I will do that sir, I'll just go tell Natasha,"

" Natasha is already here, she seems to be asleep with Clint," Coulson said, peering upon the duo of sleeping assassins.

" JARVIS, tell the others that Clint is okay," after a few months, Steve had finally gotten used to the AI. 10 minutes later, they were all piled in Bruce's Mercedes and on their way to S.H.I.E.L.D.

Meanwhile, Tony and Pepper were enjoying Greece's warm beaches and sunny days. Currently, they were both in their villa, consuming a Grecian breakfast.

" Sir, you are getting a phone call from S.H.I.E.L.D," JARVIS informed Tony.

" Unless it's an emergency J, I'm on my honey moon with my wife,"

" Sir, I my system is being overridden,"

" Stark," Coulson's voice came through his Stark phone.

" Coulson, I'm on my honey moon, so leave me alone, get some other person to do your-"

" They found Clint,"

" What!" Pepper exclaimed

" They found Clint," Coulson repeated.

" We're on our way,"

" But Pep," Tony whined.

" Anthony Stark, we are cutting our honeymoon short to go see Clint," Pepper's voice made it clear that this subject was not one to argue over.

" Fine," Tony put on his grumpy face, but he truly did want to see Clint. He just liked to contradict and argue with people.

Hey Legolas, I see we don't need to find another bird," Tony greeted. All the Avengers, Pepper, Jane, and Darcy were present. After being gone for 18 days, Clint was finally back home. Natasha nor Clint couldn't be happier; they were where they belonged, in each other's arms.

**Sooo, Clint was found! Natasha is really happy and Tony and Pepper's honeymoon was cut short. Plot ideas are always welcome. as always, please please review :) it really inspires and helps me.**


	15. Chapter 15

**this chapter is just some short clintasha fluff, hope you like it!**

Natasha stayed by Clint's side for a week while he was in medical.

" Well, only two more weeks in medical," Natasha said, though it was a wellknown fact that Clint always left medical at least three days before he was discharged.

" Yeah," Clint said sarcastically," only two more weeks in this h*ll hole!"

Natasha snorted," Well at least you weren't as bad as the time in Bern,"

" Three broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, got shot twice in the other shoulder, and fell off a building," Clint said.

" For the heaven's sake, you only fell about 10 feet off that building,"

_They were on a mission in Bern, Switzerland. He was tailing the mark, Antony Gregovich. The frigid, winter wind blew through him, thoroughly chilling him. Gregovich was about 50 yards ahead of him, but in sufficient sight. She was sitting in a café, drinking her mocha, discreetly watching him._

" _Not, fair, you get to sit all comfy drinking a mocha while I have to follow him in this g*ddman freezing weather!" Clint complained, though he had experienced and lived through extremer conditions._

" _Haha," Natasha said into her phone, as to not draw any suspicion to herself. "He's turning left, so I can see him, take the shortcut through that alley," to onlookers, her tone made it appear that she was merely talking about the weather, or perhaps her niece's upcoming birthday. As Clint disappeared through the alley, Natasha quickly finished her mocha and started following Gregovich. When the other side of the ally came into sight, she was surprised to see that Clint is neither in the alley or coming out of it,_

" _Clint! Where are you?"_

" _There are other people following Gregovich, I think he knows about them, but not us,"_

"_So some one else ordered a hit on him then," Natasha deduced._

" _Noooo," Clint answered sarcastically._

_They followed Gregovich to the outdoor mall._

" _He's trying to loose the other people," Clint realized. Before Clint or Natasha could make a move and eliminate their target, the two other people who were following him did. Without hesitation, they both drew their guns and aimed them at Gregovich. Pandemonium immediately started to ensue, once people realized that guns were being drawn. Although his back was turned to his assailants, Gregovich somehow knew he would die if he didn't do anything, so he dove to the ground, pulling out this own, concealed gun. Clint and Natasha watched as Gregovich and his enemies exchanged shots. Natasha took cover behind a random car as Clint proceeded to go behind Gregovich on a low building, only about 10 feet in the air. Soon, only one assailant remained. Suddenly, Clint crumpled to the ground; a stray bullet had hit him._

" _Clint!" Natasha cried. Within 30 seconds she was by his side, but by then he was already unconscious from blood loss. By then Gregovivh had killed the remaining assailant. It was him and her now, though he didn't realize that she intended to end his life. She aimed for his heart. Exhaling, she pulled the trigger. Coincidentally, Gregovich crouched down at that very moment to tie his shoe. Her shot missed. Gregovich looked up at her and aimed it at her head, right in between the eyes. The need to survive overcame Natasha as she flipped in the air to dodge the bullet. Unfortunately, Clint had chosen that moment to regain enough consciousness to groan and roll over, so he wasn't lying on his shot shoulder anymore. Clint must have had very bad luck that day because when he rolled over he also succeeded in rolling off the building. As he fell off the building, he got shot again, 5 inches from where the other bullet had hit him. Yes, he had very bad luck that day._

"_Sh*t," Natasha muttered as she watched Clint fall from the building, unable to do anything. She took aim at him again. The frigid air made the metal gun even colder to her fingers. She pulled the trigger. Gregovich was not so fortunate this time, the bullet hit its mark, right between his eyes._

" We had horrible luck on that mission," Clint concluded.

" Ummm, no," Natasha said, smiling," Correction, _you_ had horrible luck on that mission,"

" Fine," Clnt huffed, turning way form her, giving her the cold shoulder. Natasha smirked, Clint was so childish sometimes. Soon he would give up and start talking to her, generally about 11 seconds.

" What movie do you wanna watch?" Clint said after 10 seconds of silence that Natasha relished. Clint and Natasha had made it a tradition to watch a movie every night one of them was in medical.

" Mmmm, how about Despicable Me," Natasha said, snuggling against Clint in the twin sized hospital bed.

**this chapter as kinda short, but I hope you enjoyed none the less. thank you to lucybrad33, queenlmno, blonde4ever, and hopelessromantic1599 for reviewing. Please please review. I've already pretty much written the next chapter is I've decided not to update until I get at least five reviews:)**


	16. Chapter 16

**So, thank you to blonde4ever, queenlmno, AbigailJunior, fanofjackanz, and radradha48 for reviewing! Hope you like this chapter so here goes...**

" Hey, I got taco bell," Natasha said. It was a well known fact that the S.H.I.E.L.D hospital had sh*tty food.

" Finally, real food," Clint moaned, taking a bite from his taco. Natasha paused, watching Clint, savoring the moment of happiness brought by Taco Bell.

" I got a mission," that moment of happiness was instantaneously gone.

" What?" Clint exclaimed, Taco Bell forgotten.

" Yeah, I leave tomorrow at 10:00,"

" What is it?"

" I'm just watching over a business man. Rumor had it that some people are planning his assassination," Natasha responded.

" Who is it?"

" His name's Avery Snow, he lives in in LA"

Clint breathed a sigh of relief, " It's not as far as it could be,"

" Yeah," Natasha's voice was muffled as she had buried her head in his covers. They smelled like him.

Natasha spent her remaining hours in New York with Clint. He was due to be discharged in 4 days, not that he waited for the papers to be completed, he could leave whenever he wanted. No matter how many times Coulson told the nurses to block of the air vents to Clint's room, he always found a loophole. He had already left his room several times, one upon which he and a certain red head bombarded a new recruit with nerf bullets. His only cause of returning to his room before Coulson found out was the paling prospect of a sh*t load of paper work. Death by paper work.

So, Natasha spent the rest of the day sneaking out with Clint and terrorizing the newbies. It would soon be discovered that some believed that there was the ghost of a deceased S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that haunted the air ducts. Courtesy of Natasha and Clint.

* * *

><p>"Here's your cover," Coulson handed Natasha a file. They were on a quinjet, headed for LA.<p>

Name: Nancy Rogerson

Age: 28

Occupation: Rogerson is the secretary to Snow

Family: mother- Amber Rogerson, father- Samuel Rogerson, younger sister- Lucy Rogerson.

" How long will I need to cover him?"

" Only for about two weeks, until we can pinpoint the people who plan to kill him and eliminate them," Coulson said. After a three-hour flight, they finally arrived at the S.H.I.E.L.D. base in LA, where a Mercedes would be waiting to take Natasha to her apartment.

Natasha breathed in. She was in her apartment, her job started the next day. Flinging open her closet, Natasha found Nancy's clothes. The closet held various blouses, shirts, sweaters, jeans, skirts, and dresses, the dominant color was shades of black and white. Nancy was a business woman.

" Hello, I'm Mr. Snow's new secretary," Natasha introduced herself to the receptionist. She was wearing a black pencil skirt, a red form fitting shirt that complimented her hair, and a black blazer.

" You're Nancy Rogerson, right?" the lady smiled.

" Yes,"

" Here is your ID card, by the way my name is Naomi," she introduced herself. " Hold on just a moment and then I can show you around," Natasha smiled in response.

After a quick tour, Natasha was finally able to go see Snow. She walked towards Snow's office. _Why would someone order a hit on this man? _Natasha thought. Snow was one out of many employees in LA, what made him different? She walked down the hall. Her heels clicked in a repetitive sound against the hard, wooden floor. Finally, she reached Snow's office.

" Hello, Mr. Snow?" Natasha knocked on his door. She could see him through the window in his office.

" Come in," he said, head bent over his computer.

" I'm Nancy Rogerson, your new secretary," Natasha introduced herself.

" Ahh, Ms. Rogerson, nice to meet you," Snow smiled. " Your office is in there," he gestured to a plain, empty room directly across from his own. If she angled her chair just right, she had a perfect view of Snow's office. " Today you can just start with sorting these papers into those files,"

With that, Natasha walked out of his office and Snow went back to his ever so engrossing business. At the time he was gambling on his computer.

As Natasha sorted the papers, she kept an eye out for anything abnormal. Out of 53 papers, only one seemed remotely odd. A bill for Snow from an unnamed person for 20,000 dollars. Why would Snow be receiving a check for 20,000 dollars?

Natasha committed the paper to memory (it took her 3 and half seconds) before she placed the paper in the correct file. The rest of the week was that of sort, filing, getting Snow to sign contracts and documents, scheduling Snow's meetings.

Natasha heard nothing unusual until the eighth day. She was listening in on Snow's conversation through the bug she had planted in his office the previous day. She paused her work, pressing a hand to her earring, which held a small comm device. S.H.I.E.L.D. had developed these earring comms so that their female agents wouldn't have to wear the bulky, standard comm. The male agents would just have to deal with a big bulky, comm in their ear.

" –I will NOT be sending another f*cking check Snow, I think my last d*mn bribe was sufficient." The man on the phone was yelling at Snow.

" Oh, I don't know Mcbride, something might just… you know… slip out during lunch or something." Natasha inwardly frowned. Mcbride was running for Mayor. Why would Mcbride want to bribe Snow?

" Snow, I'm warning yo-"

" Mcbride, I'm warning _you_ that something might slip out about what I saw last week…"

Mcbride sighed in resignation," Fine, I'll send the payload tomorrow, but not a word gets out to the public Snow. Not a word. I don't want what could be my only shot at becoming Mayor to be compromised,"

" I'll expect the payload tomorrow then, all 20, 000,"

As Snow walked out of his office looking none too smug, Natasha went back pretending to be occupied on her computer. She googled everything on Ethan Mcbride. Just the usual press stuff. Mcbride was 34 and married. He had 2 kids. Went to Stanford. D*mn this guy was smart. Now he was running for Mayor. This was his first time. The press kept repeatedly stating that this was probably going to be Mcbride's only chancE and that the odds were I his favor. Why would Mcbride be bribing Snow?

It was after hours. Natasha bypassed the security. She was the d*mn Black Widow, they obviously needed to upgrade their security. Her fingers typed in Snow's password to his computer. It took Natasha only 2 minutes to find what she was looking for and a total of 54 seconds to override the security. The file contained a video.

_Mcbride was getting into his car, lips attached to a woman while groping her *ss. That woman was not Kelly Mcbride, Mcbride's wife. She had long, curly black hair. her dress made it clear that this was what she intended to happen that night. She wore a revealing blue dress with matching heels. The prius silently drove away into the darkness._

Evidently Mcbride was having an affair with another woman, he was cheating on his wife. On her way back to her apartment, Natasha realized that a man like Ethan Mcbride did not like being blackmailed, he was the threat to Snow and he was going to make his move soon.

**So, now we know who wants Snow killed. Thank you so much for reviewing and I hope you liked this chapter. As always, reviews are always appreciated. Ive decided that I will try and get 100 reviews for this story, so please please review and tell me what you think :)**


	17. Chapter 17

Natasha and Snow were on their way back from Snow's meeting with one of his potential clients when McBride made his move. They were in a pretty isolated one-way street about to get in to their car when two shots rung out. Instinctively, Natasha ducked and pulled out one of her concealed guns.

" What! Who are you? Why do you have a gun?" Snow exclaimed. Obviously he was not accustomed to gun wielding secretaries.

" I'm Natasha Romanoff, I was assigned to protect you," By now she had pulled him behind another vacant car. "When I give you the word, you run as fast as you can to the car. I'll probably be right behind you. Tell the driver to go to the Howard Johnson hotel on 603 south New Hampshire Avenue," Natasha quickly instructed.

" But, what about you?"

" I'll be fine," Natasha flashed a dauntless smile. Making sure Snow was still covered, Natasha peeked out form behind the car and returned their fire. There were 10 of Mcbride's men. 4 shots later, only 6 remained. "Now go!" The last time Snow ran more than 30 yards was in gym class in his freshman year. Needless to say, Natasha wished he would run faster.

Glancing behind her and seeing that the men were coming up from their covers, Natasha quickly shoved Snow down behind their car. He remained unscathed, save a scraped knee, while she was not so fortunate. A bullet hit her in the left shoulder. Ignoring the searing pain that was rapidly spreading through her shoulder, Natasha pulled a dazed Avery Snow into the car. As Natasha was not their target, the men immediately took aim at Snow. Natasha was about to close the door, when it suddenly either turned invisible, disappeared. She guessed the latter. She was right, one of the men had shot the door off, resulting in the disappearance of the door.

" Go! Go!" Natasha shouted at the driver. They sped off. More shots rang out as Natasha shielded Snow with her own body. The windshield was soon demolished and bullets rained down on them. Another shot rang out and Natasha felt a bullet collide with her same shoulder. Maybe 3, 4? Inches away form her other bullet wound. To avoid getting Snow shot, Natasha pulled him down bend the seat. Unfortunately, she had miscalculated the distance from her to the door. She fell out. She only had time one coherent thought before she hit the ground:_ Sh*t, the ground is hard and it's coming fast. _

She rolled wildly, her knees, ankles, shoulder, head, and stomach were all throbbing form her fall. Her right arm had taken the worst of the hit, it was definitely broken in at least 2 places. Her head hit the ground, and it wasted no time in giving her a splitting headache. Blearily, her mission not forgotten, Natasha looked around. The car had crashed, the driver dead. Snow groaned and started to get up. Despite her shot shoulder, broken arm, and most probably concussion, Natasha rolled over and pushed Snow back to the ground. They were only a few feet from the crashed car and Natasha dragged Snow along with her to it.

" Uhhh," Snow mumbled. Natasha took out her remaining gun; the other one had been lost in the crash, and proceeded to kill 3 more of their assailants. Now only 3 out of 10 remained. Natasha was about to shoot number 4 when out of the corner of her eye she caught a grenade being thrown and caught in the car. They had maybe 3 seconds before it went off. If they stayed where they were they were dead.

" D*mnit," Natasha muttered. Steeling herself for the pain to come, Natasha got up and dragged an unconscious Snow away from the soon to be detonated car. No sooner had she completed her task than an explosion practically deafened her. Then all was white. She couldn't move, a searing pain enflamed her whole side, she had a gash from the debris of the car.

All of her sharpened, enhanced senses were dulled and washed out. Everything was blindingly white. Everything was too muted, save the ringing in her ears. She couldn't even smell at all. Her only thought was her mission: protect Avery Snow. Coughing she turned over just in time to see Snow being shot in the heart. Natasha helplessly watched as more circles of red appeared in Snow's white shirt. Then, everything turned white and she grew limp.

* * *

><p>" I want a team out there right NOW!" Fury roared. They had been monitoring Snow's progress back to his work office when the street cameras showed the attack on Natasha and Snow. Immediately, a team was at the hanger and they were off in a quinjet.<p>

" Sir, Agent Romanoff is down and Snow is dead. They are on 603 south New Hampshire Avenue," Agent Hill informed him.

Fury's bad day started off with one of the new recruits unwittingly take the last strawberry cupcake in the S.H.I.E.L.D. bakery. It was a well-known fact that the last strawberry cupcake was reserved for him and him only. It was common knowledge in S.H.I.E.L.D that the last strawberry cupcake was reserve for Fury, unless you were a newbie, in which case you caught on quickly or received death glares from him. No one even thought of breaking that rule. Unlearned, ignorant recruits. Now, to make his day even worse, one of his best agents was caught in an explosion and quite possibly dead, her protégé also dead. " Have Medical on standby for when they get her back and let agent Barton know," Fury instructed.

* * *

><p>Having been officially released from medical 4 days ago, Clint was currently at the tower planning a prank on Thor with Tony,<p>

" Well, we could fill all his pop tarts with mayonnaise," Clint said. They had been plotting for a half hour and had come up with nothing, NOTHING!

" No, how about we cover his bedroom with cups of water so he can't walk anywhere without stepping on them," Tony said. Among the tower residence, Thor had a reputation for being, well, clumsy. His big Asgardian body wasn't meant for small appliances, such as the toilet or shower.

" Nahh, I think we should do something more…" as Clint searched for the right word, his phone rung. " Agent Barton," Clint said into the phone. Tony figured it was either Coulson or Fury as he figured that Clint didn't answer all his calls as Agent Barton.

"Tell, me… what is it?" Tony whined.

" I'm on my way, I'll be there in 3 hours," Clint said and without a word walked out of the room.

"Hey! Clint, where are you going?" Tony reached out and grabbed his shoulder, effectively halting Hawkeye's progress. For how long, only Clint could determine.

" It's Natasha, she got seriously injured on her mission. I'm taking a quinjet to LA." Clint said.

" Okay, JARVIS tell the others we're going to LA," Tony instructed.

" Wait what? Your coming?" Clint seemed confused.

" What, you think we're going to sit around and wait here while Natasha is there? I don't think so,"

Clint shrugged," I'm leaving in 5, whether or not everyone is there. They actually left in 3 minutes due to the fact that Tony instructed JARVIS to pack their belongings for them and send them. Standard quinjets were supposed to fly 5 or 6 occupants. Instead, they managed to cram 7. Seven wasn't breaking the capacity point _that_ much. Granted one of them turned into the Hulk when he got angry, another was a super soldier that was frozen in time, and another was practically a god. That made the 2 hours and 47 minutes very uncomfortable for Tony, Pepper, Jane, Thor, Bruce, and Steve. On average, it took quinjets about 3 hours and 52 minutes to reach LA from New York, but Clint was not an average pilot, especially when his girlfriend was possibly dead at the destination.

**So, I hope you like this chapter, it was really fun to write! Natasha may or may not be dead, you'll just have to wait and see. please review and tell me what you think, your reviews have been really helpful. **


	18. Chapter 18

By the time Clint, Tony, Bruce, Steve, Thor, Jane, and Pepper arrived at the S.H.I.E.L.D. base in LA, Natasha had been in surgery for 2 and a half hours. They all watched behind the glass window, watching them operate on her.

" She was shot in the shoulder and then again 4 inches apart, has a broken arm, a grade 3 concussion, bleeding in her brain, and a gash in her lower stomach from the explosion debris," Coulson informed them.

" Is she gonna make it?" Pepper asked.

"Probably. Right now they're working on getting the bullets out, one of them got in pretty deep. With her enhancers, we have to get them out before her body heals with them in,"

" What are the percentages of success?" Bruce asked.

Coulson sighed, " There's a," Coulson hesitated," 45% chance of survival," they stood in silence for a few minutes. Clint's eyes never left her body not even for a second. He watched as the surgeons felt around for the second bullet. They already got the first bullet out.

" There is a major artery right there," Bruce tensely said. One glare from Pepper after she looked at Clint when he said that and Bruce didn't say any more.

" We need more blood!" one of the surgeons said as Natasha's heart rate monitor suddenly dropped. Even through the glass, all of them heard this unfortunate turn of events

" But her blood type is one of a kind sir! We cant give her blood that isn't her type," one of them said. At this, Clint visibly stiffened.

" Well if we don't get her blood soon, she'll bleed out " Clint turned to Coulson

"No Clint, it _barely_ worked last time," Coulson said, grabbing his arm.

" But it worked last time! Why wouldn't work this time?"

Coulson sighed in defeat," Fine," with that, Clint and Coulson briskly walked out of the room. All the room occupants (Tony, Pepper, Bruce, Steve, Thor, and Jane) all exchanged looks. What were Clint and Coulson talking about? Their attention returned to the Operation room as a nurse walked in a few moments later carrying a bag of blood. One of the surgeons said something to the nurse and she nodded.

" Well, we might as well try it, it worked last time," they gave Natasha the blood and her heart rate went back to normal. Suddenly, the surgeons went in a frenzy, but no one watching the operation knew what was happening. After a few minutes of this hysteria, the surgeons glanced at the clock and begin to clean up. Natasha was rolled out of the room.

" What the h*ll just happened?" Tony asked, many things he was, but doctor was not one of them.

"Either she died, or she went into a coma," Bruce said quietly.

" Oh, god no. Natasha you can't do this, we need you," Steve said, horrified at the very thought. An unspoken agreement passed through all of them to find out what the h*ll just happened.

"Excuse me, what happened to Agent Romanoff?" Steve asked a doctor coming out of the OR, his voice portraying worry.

" Agent Romanoff had bleeding in her brain, we stopped it, but it resulted in a coma.

"She's in a… coma?" Jane whispered.

" Yes, a coma is a-"

" We know, you don't have to explain it," Bruce said. Though he was the only one out of them to know the actual definition.

" Which room is she in?" Pepper asked.

" She's in room 212 on the west wing on the special care side." with that the doctor hurried away, mind preoccupied.

" Okay, I think the west wing is that way," Steve pointed to their left.

" No, its got to be straight and then right," Bruce interjected. By the time they got to Natasha's room, Clint was already there.

" What took you so long?" Clint asked. Natasha's surgery had ended an hour ago.

" We, erm… kinda got lost," Steve said sheepishly. They had spent 45 minutes wandering around S.H.I.E.L.D's medical before they accidentally stumbled upon room 212 with the room occupant being Natasha Romanoff. " None of us has been here before!" Steve yelped defensively upon the ' seriously' look Clint gave them.

" How is she?" Tony asked.

" Well, she's in a coma, and they're not sure if she's gonna wake up," Clint said.

" What were you and Coulson talking about?" Thor asked.

" When?"

" When she needed more blood, and then shortly afterwards a nurse came in carrying bag of blood," Tony said.

" Oh, ummm about that… I gave her some of my blood," Clint said.

" But, they said she has a one of a kind blood type, why would she have a special blood type?" Bruce asked.

" Her enhancers… its because of her enhancers isn't it?" Steve said.

" Yeah," Clint said.

" That should have even worked," Bruce said, his brain going a million miles and hour.

" You did this before haven't you?" Tony guesses.

" Yeah, how'd you know? It was like 4 years ago,"

" You said that it worked last time," Tony said.

" Yeah, one mission, 4 years ago, Natasha got shot 4 inches from her heart, had 2 broken ribs, a broken clavicle, and a punctured lung. It was a h*lluva mission," Clint explained. " But during her surgery to remove the bullet and fix her lung, she lost so much blood that if she didn't get a blood transfusion, she'd die. So I gave her some of my blood." Clint's blood was coursing through her veins.

Moscow, Russia, 4 years ago

_She was in her mark's room. She had just gotten him to go up to his place to "have a night of fun". His dead body lay on the floor. Blood was still steadily dripping from the bullet would in his heart. The crimson red slowly spread to the pale whit, spotless carpet._

" _Barton, we have to get out of here, his henchmen will be here in approximately 47 seconds." She said through her comm._

" _Copy that, go through the window on the west wing," Natasha hastily retrieved her shoes where they had been carelessly thrown by the now dead man laying beside her and without putting them on, they were far too impractical and cumbersome for her taste, followed his directions. She reached the window. Her fingers reached for the cold, frosty window to pull it open. She pulled it open, not thinking twice about the resistance it offered and was greeted by cold, Russian wind. This was her homeland the cold never bothered her. She had one stocking clad foot when she heard footsteps running towards her. Thump, thump, thump. She could feel their footsteps vibrate the floor. Quickly, she turned around and shot one. As retaliation, one of them hurled a knife at her heart with deadly accuracy. Time seemed to slow down. She turned herself so her heart was no longer the target. Instead, it hit her stomach, puncturing a lung. She was turning back around when a bullet tore through her skin. She was instantaneously greeted by a searing pain consuming her whole chest. _

" _Barton, where are you?" she groaned. As an answer, two welcoming arrows pierced her remaining assailants. He had saved her life. She pulled the rest of her body onto the fire escape. The cold, metal grit of the metal dug into her skin. Doing her best not to fall off the 15 foot high fire escape, Natasha carefully tried to climb down. But she was shot in the kidney and had already lost about a cup of blood. She fell the rest of the way. _

" _Natahsa?" he asked, all the assailants dead. In resonse, Natasha merely groaned and tried to sit up. Clint stopped her efforts and pushed her back down. He pulled up part of her shirt and pressed a hand to her side. _

"_Клинт__Черт__! __Перестань__!" ( D*mnit Clint! Stop it,) Natasha resortd back to her mother tongue. Yep, her ribs were definitely screwed. He could tell just by the way her shoulder was angled that her clavicle was broken, if not anything else._

" _Stay with me Nat, they're on their way now," Natasha had never let him use nicknames on her. Wither she was letting him now, or she was just not in any condition to protest with him._

" That was the first time she ever let me use nick names on her," Clint said, ending the story of how he had given Natasha blood.

" Well, lucky you, she throws knives at me whenever I try to use nicknames on her," Tony said matter of factly.

" I took her 4 _years_ for her to start letting me call her Nat and 6 years for Tasha," Clint said, " You're lucky that she doesn't do more than throw knives at you Tony. The first time I tried nick names on her, she pinned me to the ground with a knife 2 centimeters from my throat,"

" Really? She lets me call her Nat," Bruce said.

" Me too, I've never tried Tasha though, and nor do I intend to," said Steve.

" I as well," said Thor. Jane and Pepper quickly said that yes, Natasha let them call her Nat.

Clint laughed, " Looks like your special Tony," Tony only huffed and gave everyone in the room the cold shoulder. Talking about her in the present, not the past, helped everyone not think about the coma induced red-head laying not 5 feet away from them. Clint looked at her and remembered the first time he saw her gorgeous green eyes for himself.

_It was summer in London. He would always remember. He had been been gathering intel on her and following her for 4 months. S.H.I.E.L.D. had had almost nothing on her. Her age:18, her known kill count: 169, and a grainy picture. Despite the bad picture, he could still make out her petite frame and long, blood red hair. Over the past years, she had had so many aliases that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't even know her name, which he had discovered was Natalia Alianova Romanava. She was currently sitting at a café, sipping her tea and reading the newspaper. For only the third time in 4 months, he saw her without her sunglasses off. This time, he was close enough to see her eyes. Granted, she had an excuse because those 4 months had been May, June, July, and August, the hottest months of the year. He had expected her eyes to be blue maybe, or green. They were green, but not a dull, one-colored green, but a bright, miserable, multicolored green. He stared into her eyes and was surprised to see that though her eyes looked heartless, deep down, underneath all the people she had pretended to be and had killed, there was regret, she wanted out of this lifestyle. He couldn't stop staring into her eyes. 'Snap out of it, this is exactly how she seduces her marks.' Clint shook himself out of the trance. _

Strangely enough, she despite all odds, still made him fall in love with her. Clint looked down at Natasha,_ what if I never see those beautiful, green eyes again?_ He thought.

**I've decided to write this story like Captain America TWS didn't happen and Steve isn't working for SHIELD even though that movie was AMAZING. Anyways, hope you liked this chapter. Please review, it really really helps me :) On that note, thank you to JWolf28, fanofjackandz, sillystarshine, Guest, and RiverHolly13086 for reviewing. **


	19. Chapter 19

** Big thanks to linzschminz, RiverHolly13086, Blonde4ever, and Ensignily for reviewing it rally helps me. hope you like this chapter :)**

Clint stared at Natasha. She had taken two bullets for a man that ended up dying. She had been in a coma for 5 days. In those 5 days, Clint never left S.H.I.E.L.D and left her bedside only to go eat, generally about once a day. Her naturally pale skin was now even paler now that if not for life support, she would be dead. So close to death, her skin was unnaturally pale. He looked at her pale, red lips. The normal color should be that beautiful red that usually occupied her lips. Staring at her, he thought of the first time they had kissed. It was a mission in London.

Clint's POV

_It was cool. They were walking down the muggy, bustling stairs to the underground to try and lose their tails. It was just a mission to gather intel on the target. S.H.I.E.L.D knew next to nothing on the guy. There were two men following them. They were given the description of a short red head and a blonde, average heighted man wearing a navy blue jacket. As they walked down the stairs, his nose was assaulted by the smells of a modern city. Mainly cigarette smoke, accompanied by the smells of gas, cheap, fatty food, cologne, grease, and wet rain, as it had been raining for 3 straight days. He was sure that with her enhanced senses, everything was much worse. They got on._

" _One in the car behind us and one sitting in front of us, black shirt, 6__th__ row." Natasha quietly informed him._

" _Get off at South Kensington," he told her. They were standing. The hum of talk buzzed around their car, their conversation was well masked. People were pressed against them from all sides. He watched out of his peripherals as she discreetly palmed a ladies wallet. Her pale, delicate hand that hand ended many a life reached into the purse and pulled out the wallet. Her purse was hanging wide open and she was chatting amiably with her friend. Her accent was distinctly American. She was obviously a tourist. _

" _We have arrived at Sloane Square," the intercom blared." Mind the gap between the train, and the platform. Next stop, South Kensington." He shifted so he wasn't directly behind the man, but wasn't conspicuous. The man turned around, scanning the car one last time. _

" _Go with it," Natasha hissed at him as she hugged him and cupped his face. Before he knew it, her lips were pressed against his. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back. She smelled like her perfume that only she used. It was a distinct Natasha smell. They had only been partners for 3 years, 1 and a half of which she didn't trust him at all. She had only recently trusted him, after he had saved her from an awry mission. The man looked away. They broke apart._

" _What was that?"_

" _Kissing makes people feel uncomfortable and it gives them the need to look away." She explained. " Now say something to me and I'll pretend you said something funny." The man was still searching for them. _

" _The last girl I kissed was 2 years ago," even though that was not even remotely funny, Natasha giggled and shifted so she wasn't in the direct line of sight of the man. They stopped. They had arrived at South Kensington. There were people pressing on him everywhere. Elbows, knees, hands, heads. They climbed up the stairs. It was cloudy, the pale orb of the sun was completely covered by the grey, ominous clouds. The clouds were so dense that he could look at the sun, there would be an uncanny resemblance to the moon. Not that he did, it would ruin his perfect vision. Obviously not something he wanted to risk. _

"_Was I actually the first person you've kissed in 2 years?" Natasha asked him. They were on the quinjet, headed back to the helicarrier._

" _First, girl," Clint stressed. Natasha stared at him, an amused look on her face._

" _So, who was the guy?"_

_Clint grimaced," About a year before, my target was gay, and I had to get some information out of him. Nothing too serious happened though," ever since the first mission they went on, they always referred to the time Clint spared her life as a blank before blank. Natasha raised an eyebrow._

" Hey Clint, we've decided to not let you be like Natasha was when you were missing. She was a mess." Tony announced his arrival, along with Bruce and Steve.

" How bad was she?"

" Well, lets see, she ate next to nothing, lost 4 pounds, barely slept, probably an average of 5 and a half hours a week, and spent her every waking moment at the gym and at S.H.I.E.L.D." Tony said.

" Actually, miss Romanoff lost 6 pounds and slept an average of 7 and half hours a week." JARVIS corrected.

Tony rolled his eyes," Whatever,"

" So, we are going to take you back to the tower where we will watch Pirates of the Caribbean," Steve said, his voice making it clear that Clint _would_ go to the tower.

" And then you can come right back here and watch her," Bruce added. They had decided to integrate the activities at a slow rate until Natasha woke up, refusing to think even for a second that she might never wake up. It was a fortunate thing that Bruce and Steve were present when Tony decided to get Clint back in the world. They managed to dissuade him of forcing Clint to go straight to a bar and get drunk off his *ss.

" Fine, but I'm going right back," Clint grumbled. So, Clint spent his 3 hours away from Natasha watching Pirates of the Caribbean. Which, though it was meant to take his mind off her, only made him think of her more. The first night they started dating, they watched Pirates of the Caribbean. Throughout the movie, Clint only sought out more references and phrases that made him think of Natasha and the state she was in.

" Coulson?" Fury asked. They were at the base Natasha was residing in.

" Yes?"

" You might want to suggest to the nurse that they roll in an extra bed in agent Romanoff's room. I suspect he will be there tonight."

" Yes sir, I will do that," it was not a secret that Clint had left S.H.I.E.L.D. once in 4 days.

" All right, I'm gonna go back to base now," Clint announced. They had finished the movie and Clint could fell her absence hovering everywhere.

" Kay, see you tomorrow then," Jane knew it was no use trying to persuade Clint to stay at the tower with a real bed, no matter how much her motherly instincts protested.

When Clint got to Natasha's room, he found an extra neat, sterile bed occupying it. He ignored it. Instead, he climbed into the vents and into one of his nests. This particular nest consisted of a few pillows and gun, incase of an emergency. Clint could see Natasha and an efficient method of operating with the air vents. Clint watched Natasha for a few more minutes before he was dragged into a restless, nightmare plagued sleep.

**As usual, reviews and plot ideas are always appreciated. Please review and i hope you liked this chapter.**


	20. Chapter 20

**thank you for all the nice reviews. A special thanks to Ensignily, JWolf28, and Blonde4ever:)**

" Has ever been in a coma before?" Steve asked. They were all in Natasha's room.

"Just one, about 4 years ago, but I don't know if she had any before she defected." Clint said. " That one lasted only 3 days though." It had been 11 days.

" Speaking of which, what _did_ Spidey do before she defected?" Tony asked.

Clint shrugged. Natasha's past was her business. Not even he knew all of it.

" Well, you know more than any of us," Steve said. As much as he wanted to respect Natasha's privacy, he still wanted to know.

" An organization called the red room killed her family when she was 5 and trained her. When she was 17 she found out they had killed her parents and escaped. She wrecked havoc for a year before I was sent to kill her, but when I found her, I didn't." the rest would be for her to tell.

_Inhale, aim. Exhale, release. He heard the satisfying thunk as his arrow hit the heart of one of the moving dummies._

"_Agent Barton, report," Fury called through his com. "Here is your target," he was now in Fury's office. He slid a file across his desk. Looking inside, he could see that S.H.I.E.L.D. had barely anything on her._

" _No name?"_

" _She's known as the Black Widow," Fury said. Clint had heard of the Black Widow. She was one of the most infamous spies in the world. She was one of the best. "She's had so many aliases over the years that we don't even know her name. _

_Age: 18_

_Kill count: 169 _

'H_oly sh*t, this woman has killed 169 people. She's only 18!' Clint thought as he read the file in disbelief. Accompanying the miniscule information in the file was a grainy picture of her. Even the distorted picture couldn't contort her beautiful features. There was no doubt that this woman was beautiful. Half of her face was covered by her long, red hair. She had pale skin and perfect, defined cheekbones. In the photo she was looking away, obviously preoccupied with a threat._

"_How'd you get this photo?" _

_Fury sighed, " Brooks took it and sent it to us before she shot him 4 times in the heart, he's dead."_

_Clint nodded, this woman had killed countless people without second thought, she deserved to die, "When do I leave?"_

" _Tonight at 1900. We caught wind that she was in Dublin, Ireland. This is a small and rare window of opportunity. In the past year, this is the closest we've gotten to finding her,"_

" _She's a ghost," Clint said. _

" _Yes, and we need you to eliminate her ASAP. She wrecking havoc and giving me a f*cking migraine 10 times a day." Clint nodded and left his office. _

" _Who trained her?" Clint asked as he sipped his coffee. They we're in the quinjet, on their way to Dublin._

" _An organization called the red room. They train girls starting at the age of 5 to become assassins to do their dirty work. The girls were brainwashed. But she fought it and eventually escaped, and now she's basically a hired assassin. The red room was crippled 9 months ago, by her. She's a wild card Barton, be careful," Coulson said. Clint nodded, thoughts obviously elsewhere._

_By the time he arrived in Dublin, it was 8:00 pm local time. _

" _She's staying at the Fitzwilliam hotel," Coulson informed him via their com. _

" _One room, please," Clint said. As this was an extensive undercover mission, Clint was staying at a hotel relatively close to the Widow's._

" _Name?" _

" _Cameron Drew,"_

"_Your room will be room 411, the elevator is down that hallway and on the left." _

" _Thanks," Clint said. Aside from also eliminating her, the mission also entailed him to gather information on her as well._

_ He was sitting in a café. She was across the street, examining a brimmed hat. Since the summer months were coming, Clint supposed she had to protect that pale skin of hers that would get easily sunburned. Along with the sun protection part, the hat also provided a good object to cover her face. She had been well trained she was good. But he was the g*damn Hawkeye. And he was d*mn good at his job. He would complete this mission. Sipping his mocha, he searched S.H.I.E.L.D's search engine over the Black Widow, he needed somewhere to start. He came up with barely anything._

_The Black Widow has terminated 4 agents. Agents Brooks and Romereo were killed tailing her in Paris, France. The Black Widow terminated agent Uloav while she was undercover in Marsielle, France. When agent Howston arrived as backup for Uloav, the Widow terminated him as well. The Black Widow is a level 8 threat and is number 1 on the hit list. Terminate on sight._

_As Clint read it, he couldn't help but see through what S.H.I.E.L.D. had written. She was a person, not a monster. Albeit she had killed 169 people. _

As he finished talking, he watched his teammates and friends' expressions. He had been the first person to ever doubt that she was a monster. The first person to ever consider she was human.

" Wow, she's been through h*ll. It's a wonder that she actually trusts anyone now," Steve marveled.

Clint shrugged, " Yeah, well it took her 7 years until she fully trusted me. It's a miracle that she opened up to you so fast,"

Bruce looked up, " Another night, while you were still missing, we saw her have a nightmare and she actually told us what is was about,"

" But other than that, she's pretty much kept her past a secret," Steve said.

" Its not the same without her," Jane said. Whenever she was in town, the majority of the time, Jane joined Natasha and Pepper on their girls' night out.

" As much as I would like to stay here, I have a meeting at Stark Industries that I absolutely HAVE to attend, so I have to go. See you all tomorrow," Pepper ducked out of the room, strawberry blonde hair swishing in its ponytail. Slowly, everybody left, leaving the usual occupants: Clint and Natasha. _It took her seven years to start trusting me,_ thought Clint. It was a mission in Russia.

_ Clint's POV_

_Their mission was to cripple an arms dealer. They were based in Volgograd, Russia. The cold Russian wind tore through his coat as if it were made of toilet paper; the coat could hardly be classified as a coat in Russia. She however, was looking at the buildings, seemingly not affected by the cold chill that was enveloping the city. The coldness didn't damper his mood at all, it was the first mission they had had in a month, he had gotten stir crazy. Needless to say, many of the new S.H.I.E.L.D. recruits learned to avoid standing under the air vents, obviously a result of Clint. Looking at Natasha however, he could see that she was in a venomous mood indeed. Underneath all the venomousness, he could see that her face hinted a far away look. He trudged next to her, they arrived at their hotel. _

_After a wretched 2 days with a very irritable Back Widow, they had finally gathered enough intel to cripple the organization. He would be blowing up the main compound while she snuck in and stole the flash drive they were also sent to retrieve. The compound was actually in a neighborhood. Unbeknownst to the authorities, the organization had built numerous underground levels. As multiple people going in and out of the house would draw attention to the neighbors, there was a ½ mile underground passage way. He let himself into a house that he knew was deserted, the house occupants had left for a trip to Moscow, they would be gone another 3 days. He watched through a window as she snuck in not meeting any resistance, as it was a civilian house, the first floor looked like the normal Volgograd house. But before she completely disappeared through the door, he caught a glance at the house 2 houses down. _

" _Romanoff, status?" he asked._

" _Almost to it," Natasha said. Every S.H.I.E.L.D. item had a tracking device on it, which was how Natasha was finding it. This flash drive had tracking spray on it, it was impossible to rub or rinse off the spray once it was on without destroying it. _

" _Got it," Natasha said triumphed. But the sound of heavy steps quickly interrupted her escape._

_It was silent for a few minutes before he checked in with her, " Romanoff, what's your status?" _

_After a few moments of silence she replied, " I'm on my way out, blow the place in 2 minutes even if I'm no-" her instructions were cut short by static. D*mn coms, always broke down at the most inopportune moments. Clint decided to trust her judgment and waited 2 minutes. Inhale, aim. Exhale, release. He let loose the arrow into the heart of the house. Without looking down, his thumb found the button he was looking for. He pressed it, the hard plastic yielding to the pressure his thumb was applying. With no warning, the arrow exploded. Instantaneously, the house caught fire. To the authorities, it would seem that it had been a simple house fire._

" _Romanoff!" said, by now the house had been gutted by the flames, the cold Russian wind had quickly snuffed the fire. The fire had died and his red head of a partner had yet to make and appearance_

" _Romanoff! Natasha! What's your status?" by now the static had stopped, but the other end remained eerily silent. _

" _Hawkeye. I'm fine, I'll meet you at the rendezvous point in 1 hour." Though he was filled with relief, he couldn't help but notice that her voice was resounding with something he had never heard before, or she had been too skilled to let any one know. Fear. Was his partner scared?_

_He had been waiting at the hotel a block from their own for 30 minutes. He sat down at a table. He pulled out his laptop (he had stopped at their hotel to grab necessities) and pulled up her com tracking icon. It read that she was still at the house that he had recently demolished. Had he just blown up his own partner?_

" _Natasha, where are you? If this is some kind of d*mn joke you pulli-" _

_Natasha's line spluttered to life and before he could finish his sentence a voice spoke through it. It was the most welcoming voice he had heard in an hour. "Your too late," Natasha's voice rasped," Time's up... go back to base Hawkeye," though it may have been her voice, the words were certainly not Natasha Romanoff's words. _

" _Okay, roger that," he carefully said. He looked at the tracker again, it still read that she was in the house, but then it started steadily moving away. It flickered, and then went black. He thought and added the puzzle pieces together. Those weren't Natasha's words. She had seemed scared when she had last talked to him. Natasha had been captured and was probably being held hostage._

_Walking towards his car, Clint pulled out his phone. They might have somehow bugged his com. " Coulson, Romanoff has been compromised. She is with hostiles,"_

" _Where is she? Does her tracking device on her com work?" Coulson responded._

" _They disabled it, though they can still communicate with us,"_

" _I'll send retrieval team now," Coulson said. But retrieval would take at least 4 hours to get there, even with the quinjets. He decided to start searching now. unfortunately, his enemies had an hour and a half head start. But his logic was flawed. He had not taken into account the helicarrier, which happened to be floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. S.H.I.E.L.D had long since discovered that this was a good place to hang out. It wasn't above foreign waters, and it was a central place. The helicarrier would take 2 hours to reach Volgograd. So, in 2 hours, much to the surprise of Clint, retrieval made it to him in 2 and a half hours._

_By the time they found Natasha, 4 days later, she was in a terrible state. She had obviously been interrogated and tortured for hours. _

" _How bad is she?" Clint asked. They had Natasha with a medical team on the qiunjet, on their way to the helicarrier, the closest S.H.I.E.L.D. base._

" _Well, there is evidence that she was water boarded many times, so a little water in her lungs, a broken arm, sprained knee, concussion, 2 broken ribs, and numerous knife wounds. The doctors say she's lost almost 2 pints of blood," Coulson said._

" _Its impressive that she didn't reveal anything, given the extent of her interrogation," Clint said._

_Natasha regained consciousness, " You need to set the bones before anything else," she instructed. _

" _No, right now the priority is t-" one of the doctors said._

" _Trust me," Natasha groaned. " Enhancers," by now, 7 years into working for S.H.I.E.L.D, the doctors were accustomed to her enhancers. If they didn't set the misplaced bones soon, her body would heal around them. All of a sudden she started retching, her shoulders slumped. A few more minutes of gagging into her hand and she suddenly produced the flash drive. She gave to Coulson. _

" _What…? How?" Coulson stuttered. _

" _Kept it in my throat," With that deed done, Natasha promptly lost consciousness. Natasha had partially swallowed the flash drive and had not betrayed S.H.I.E.L.D through hours of intense interrogation._

" _You mind if I ask a question?" Clint asked. Natasha had successfully made through the surgery to empty her lungs of the intrusive water._

" _What?" she said cautiously. She was lying on her bed, the soft sheets pulled to her chest, her red hair splayed out around her. _

" _In Volgograd, you seemed distracted, more distracted than I've ever seen you. Why?" he knew it was a long shot. In their 7 years of knowing each other, Natasha had only revealed that she had started training at a very young age in the Black Widow program with the red room. 7 years and that was how much she had revealed. The last time he questioned her on her past, 2 years ago, he had ended up on the ground with a knife a centimeter from his head with her on top of him, another knife poised at his throat. Clint stopped asking her after that. He supposed this was a safe environment. She was still bedridden as her ribs were still healing. She couldn't do anything THAT severe to him now._

" _Before the red room took me, I lived Volgograd. I don't remember much, but I'm pretty sure that brown house was mine, I remember the front. I guess I was so distracted that I tripped a few alarms, Natasha explained. Clint couldn't keep the surprised look form his face. This was the most she had told him. He gave her a slight smile as a thanks for answering him._

Clint climbed into his air vent, lost in thought, would his girlfriend, partner, best friend, savior ever wake up?

**sooooo, tell me what you think. As always, reviews are always appreciated!**


	21. The Decision

**soo, I hopeyou like his chapter. Thanks to Blonde4ever, JWolf28, and bluerose 921 for the awesome reviews. Please review cause I'm trying to get 100 reviews for this story. Your reviews have been awesome so far. Hope you like this chapter!**

Jane stared at the item in her hand in disbelief. Positive. It was positive. The pregnancy test, it was positive. She had been feeling sick for a few days. She had just thought it was a stomach bug going around, but no, it was because she was pregnant.

"Thor?" Jane walked out of their bathroom. Thor was sitting on their bed, currently trying to perform the arduous task of putting on a shirt correctly, in his opinion, Asgardian clothing was much easier to dawn than Midgardian clothing.

" Yes Jane?"

" Ummm Thor, I'm, " Jane took a deep breathe, " I'm pregnant."

The task of putting his shirt with the right part in front was immediately abandoned at these words. As a result his shirt hung halfway on and backwards.

"Jane! That is wonderful news!" Thor exclaimed." Unless, you don't want to be pregnant," he added, a frown forming on his face at that tiny, tiny predicament.

Jane smiled nervously, " I think, I think I'm ready to be pregnant. Yes!"

" We must tell the others at once!"

" Yeah, yeah okay." Jane said a bit nervously. What would the others think?

" Pepper," Jane said, " Can I come in?" Pepper was in her and Tony's bathroom, doing her hair. Jane had decided to tell Pepper before all the others as Pepper was the most sensible person she knew.

" Yeah sure, I'm just doing my hair." Pepper called.

" Okay, I'm going to tell you something and you have to promise not to freak out, kay?"

" Okay," Pepper said, not knowing quite how big the news was that Jane was about to tell her.

" I'm pregnant," Pepper's hair brush clattered to the floor.

" What?"

" I'm pregnant,"

" That great!" Pepper exclaimed.

* * *

><p>S.H.I.E.L.D's medical, New York<p>

" So, she's been under for 2 weeks today, as a doctor, its my job to list all the possibilities," Natasha's doctor said to Clint. Clint was Natasha's official guardian and if Clint wasn't available it was Coulson. Clint stomach dropped, he had an idea of where this conversation was going and he didn't like it. "In the best case scenario, she wakes up soon. But in the worst case scenario, she may never wake up. As of right now, the only thing keeping her alive is life support. You can make the decision to take her off life support whenever. I know you two go back a ways and I completely understand."

Nearly everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. had heard of the duo. Strike team delta. Hawkeye and Black Widow. Their names were always said in succession of one another.

Clint's blood boiled," If you understood _anything_, you would understand that we have been through a h*ll of a lot worse and I will never ever make the decision to let her die when there is a _slim _possibility of her recovering. We've had faith in each other for years, _years_, that's how our partnership has gone. So d*mnit, I will NOT take her off life support. She will wake up." Clint was in an outrage. The door creaked open and Bruce peeked his head in.

"Can I come in?" he asked. He took in Clint's outraged expression and the doctor's timid appearance. He seemed to actually be hiding behind his clipboard. Bruce sighed, "What happened?"

"He," Clint said, pointing at the doctor who, though he had come out from behind his clipboard, seemed even more terrified. He was in the presence of an extremely pissed off man who killed people for a living and was d*mn good at his job, and a man who turned into the hulk when he got angry. Or when some one threatened his friends. "Wanted me to _consider _taking Natasha off life support and thusly end her life,"

" Clint," Bruce said gently, " did he explicitly say you have to take her off life support?"

" No,"

Bruce turned to the terrified doctor, " if you were in this situation, what would you do?"

" At his point, 2 weeks into a coma, the chances of the patient waking up is about 40%, so I would probably wait a little bit and if she didn't wake up, then yes, I would take her off life support."

" Clint, I think you should set a deadline for yourself and if she didn't wake up by then, then you would take her off life support, no matter what your heart says, you wouldn't be doing her any good by keeping her alive. You would have to let her go." Bruce suggested.

By now Clint had calmed somewhat down, "Fine. 10 years." Clint said stubbornly said.

"Sooner,"

" Fine. 5 years."

Bruce sighed, Clint could be so stubborn sometimes, like when he refused to take nothing but the lemonade. Tony and Clint had spent an hour fighting over the last lemonade. The other choice was strawberry lemonade. " Sooner,"

" 1 year,"

" Sooner." Clint said, crossing his arms stubbornly. 30 minutes later, Bruce finally got Clint to wait 2 months. 2 short months.

Bruce and Clint were driving to the tower, on his forced daily outing. If it were up to him, he would spend every living moment by Natasha until she woke up. If she woke up._ Come'n Natasha, you only have 2 months now. Now wake the h*ll up! _thought Clint in the passenger side of Bruce's Mercedes. Natasha really did need to wake up. 2 months wasn't that long of a time.

* * *

><p>Natasha was in limbo. She couldn't tell if she was standing, or sitting, or lying down. It felt like her body wasn't even attached to her mind. Everything was white. No matter how much she strained her eyes, all she could see was white. She couldn't smell anything. She couldn't hear anything, no matter how much she tried to. Time didn't seem to matter here. But she knew that if she didn't fight it, Death would drag her to h*ll. There was no doubt about it, she was most definitely going to h*ll. <em>But why just delay the inevitable? <em> Natasha thought. _That's all I've done my whole life._ All Natasha had to do was let go of all she cared about and all she had done and everybody she knew, and Clint, the first person to ever see through the mask of the Black Widow and into the real her. So many lives had ended at her hand. It only seemed fit that she received the same punishment. Snow. Dimitri. Dreykov's daughter. Katerina. Her parents. Viktoriya. David. Hans. She could name each and every one of her now deceased targets. That list went up to 113. The other 96 were innocents in the wrong place in the wrong time. She thought of all the times she was tortured and imprisoned and had wished she would die.

_She was on a mission in Azerbaijan for the red room. She had been caught stealing a file containing sensitive information on Russia. She was in a cell. The walls and floor were a dull, dirty, blood splattered grey. It was freezing. She pulled her arms around her legs, sinking to a sitting position, waiting, just waiting. Soon, 3 guards came and roughly shoved her to her feet, their rough hands gripping her. Hands on her arms. Hands on her neck. Hands on her shoulders. Knowing that what was in store for her would be far from pleasant, she kicked and punched for all she was worth. But these guards were exceptional. They already knew where she was injured. She swung wildly, her fist connected with a soft, nerve covered neck. The guard crumpled to the ground; he would be sufficiently incapacitated for at least 3 months. Before she could do further damage, a finger jabbed at the bullet wound in her leg. The bullet shifted and she nearly crumpled from the pain. 'You are the god*mn black widow.' She told herself. ' You will not cry out. You will not say anything. You will not show pain. You will remain expressionless. You will stay strong,' Her trainers' voices rung in her head. As her right leg hung useless, pain engulfing it whenever she was jostled or pushed, the guards dragged her the remaining distance to what she assumed was the interrogation room. They opened the door, shoved her in a chair, and handcuffed her to it. The cuffs were digging into her skin. Then, in came in the muscle men. _

"Th_e infamous Black Widow," one of them sneered. She coldly looked straight through them. " How did you find this compound?" despite all inevitable and already existent pain, she smiled. There was always a who, what, where, how, when, why, with interrogations. She remained stubbornly silent. _

_As a result of her silence, she received a harsh blow on her face. She could feel her face redden as her blood rushed to the assaulted area. Then came another blow. And then another. The metal cuffs were digging into her wrists. 10 minutes later, her face is bloodied and cut. They move onto the knives. She involuntarily strained against the cuffs. The metal bit into her skin, a drop of blood splattered to the floor. They grab her still cuffed arm and dislocated it. She could feel her tendons snapping. Her whole arm seemed to be engulfed in fire. With her arm still at that bad angle, one of them almost delicately traced a circle on her arm. She bit her lip to avoid crying out. 'Never show weakness, stay loyal to Mother Russia. You are the Black Widow. You are the best.' She told herself. The blade slowly cut through her skin. Slowly, blood started pouring out. Then another circle. Soon, he had carved his organizations insignia on her forearm. Blood was now steadily surging out of her arm. She had long since abandoned giving a d*mn what she felt. She would not divulge anything. She was the Natalia Romanova. The best. She had survived worse than this. She was strong. She was the best of the best. She was the Black Widow. She wished she would die._

But Natasha was the g*damn Black widow. She was the d*mned Black Widow and nothing could change her past. But she could decide her future. _Think of Clint! You can't leave him behind. You love him._ That was the first time she admitted to herself that she did indeed love Clint no matter how much she avoided the topic in her mind. _You can't change the past, but you can rewrite the future,_ she told herself. _And you can't do that dead._ A little bit of Natasha returned from limbo and back into her body. _You have to fight it! _Natasha told herself. _ If you don't fight it, it will drag you to h*ll where you will have to stay there for eternity._ A little bit more of Natasha returned to her body as she convinced herself that she loved Clint and couldn't leave him behind and that she had done good in the world, despite her past, she could never escape her past. She had rid the world of bad people. A little more of Natasha returned to her body. All she needed to do was convince herself.

* * *

><p>"What the h*ll just happened!" one of the doctors said. Natasha had been in her comatose state when her heart rate went all crazy.<p>

" She might be waking up!" the doctors and nurses were in a frenzy, trying to calm Natasha down.

" Drew, contact director Fury,"

" Yes sir,"

All this chaos was occurring while Clint was out on his forced daily outing; he was currently at the tower, hearing the big news.

" Yep, I'm pregnant." Jane clarified. She had just told everyone that she was indeed pregnant.

" That's great, Jane," Steve said.

" We've also decided to get married as it is a Midgardian custom before one has children," Thor said.

" Do you know when the due date is?" Clint asked. He never really wanted children in his f*cked up life and he was pretty certain that Natasha didn't want children either.

" No, I'm going to the doctors later this week,"

" We've also decided to get married as it is a Midgardian custom before one has children," Thor said.

" Cool! What's the da-" Clint's sentence was cut off by the ringing of his phone. It was S.H.I.E.L.D.

" Agent Barton," he answered." Are you sure? Okay then, I'm on my way," Clint hung up." Congrats you guys," he said to Jane and Thor. With that he walked out with no further explanation, leaving 6 baffled individuals trying to figure out what the h*ll just happened.

" Where is she?" Clint demanded. Coulson had just called him and told him that Natasha may be waking up and he should be there when she does.

" She's in room 7A," Coulson told him. " She's sleeping right now. Her body is stillrecov earring. He should be awake tomorrow at the latest.

" Okay," Clint sat down. He was in Natasha's room. She looked like sh*t. He watched her breathe. He thought of all the times she saved his life.

_They were in Moscow, Russia. Their target was Igor Filipov. He was a wealthy weapons dealer. They walked in the gala. _

" _Target is at 4 o'clock, red tie, blonde hair, talking to the brunette at the bar," He informed her._

" _Barton, I know very well where he is," she hissed at him. He suppressed a smirk. They split apart. He went to flirt with some other pretty blonde. She went to the bar._

"_And who are you?" a voice behind her whispered. Natasha turned around._

" _My name is Regina,"_

" _Surely such a pretty girl has a date?" _

_Natasha sighed. Every man was the same when he wanted a girl in bed," He's over there," she said, pointing, bitterness tainting her voice. She was pointing at Clint, who was passionately kissing a woman._

" _I'm sorry, perhaps you would like to get back at him?"_

_Natasha smiled," Yes, yes I would." They walked up by Clint and the slut and started kissing._

" _Regina!" Clint said indignantly. Even though he was doing the exact same thing, he still sounded angry at her for kissing Filipov._

" _Yes?" she replied silkily._

_Clint dramatically put a hand to his heart," How could you?" he could be a bit overdramatic some times. Something that drove Natasha crazy._

_Natasha pulled Filipov into a hug," I love him, not you," she said while palming his phone. Clint tried to keep Filipov's attention on him while Natasha read through is texts. The last text was from an unknown source. It held a picture of Clint and Natasha with the caption: assassins, beware. Natasha looked up at Clint, her cover momentarily slipping. Clint caught it. Natasha hugged Filipov even tighter and felt the pressure of a concealed gun and 2 knives. He had been expecting a fight tonight. She pulled away form him._

" _David, get the h*ll out of here, I never want to see you again. There was a warning in her words. He decided to follow her instructions._

" _Rozalina, lets get out of here," Clint said, grabbing the girl's hand. The more innocents that got out of there the better._

Clint was brought back to the present as Natasha's breathing skipped a beat. That mission Natasha saved his life. She had been caught in an explosion. The only reason she survived was because of her enhancers. He would have died.

" Tash?" Natasha tried to sit up, groaned, and flopped back down. She was okay. She had woken up. Natasha was okay. She was Natasha d*mn Romanoff, of course she could get through this.

**yay! Natasha woke up. please review, it doesn't take long and it really helps me:)**


	22. Chapter 22

**Sorry it's taken me a while to update, I've been busy with end of the year stuff and haven't had much inspiration. big thanks to hopelesssromantic1599,Blackhawk21, Ensignily, JWolf28, Blonde4ever, bluerose921, queenlmno,BurningEmber100, and RiverHolly13086 for the awesome reviews. Please keep up with all the reviews. sorry that its a shorter chapter, but i hope you like it!  
><strong>

Clint watched Natasha. Against all odds she had woken up. She was okay. Her breathing skipped a beat.

" Tash, I know you're awake, its just me in here," Clint sighed, knowing what her next reaction would be. With no warning Natasha reached for a needle an had it poised to kill an unknown threat. A nonexistent threat as it turned out. She hadn't even opened her eyes and she already knew where a weapon was. Even after 7 years, Natasha had not suppressed this reflex. Not that it ever crossed her mind, this reflex had saved her life too many times to count.

"Hey Clint," she croaked.

Clint breathed a sigh of relief, "Hey Tash,"

Natasha looked around, surveying the bustling nurses, preoccupied doctors, and the sterile, white, clean room she was in. "How bad was I?" she asked quietly. Her body had been busy repairing herself and she felt like sh*t.

" Not actually too bad," Clint said, "Considering you got shot twice in the shoulder, fell out of a car," Clint chuckled, the infamous Black Widow falling out of a _car_. " Was 6 feet away when a grenade exploded, had bleeding in your brain, broke your arm in 2 places, and got a grade 3 concussion."

" How long 'till I get out of this h*ll hole?" she asked. Natasha would forever hate hospitals.

" I think only another week and a half, but it'll be a while until you're cleared for field work." Clint said. " Jane and Thor are getting married,"

" What?! when did this happen?"

" Last week. Yeah, Jane is pregnant, so they decided to get married."

" Well unless something drastic happens before the wedding, you'll at least be at that one," Natasha said, referring to Pepper and Tony's wedding.

"Yeah,"

" Remember when we were on our way to Taylor's wedding in Providence?" Natasha said, smiling.

" Yeah, I mean we did all that in dress clothes." Clint said.

_They were driving in a S.H.I.E.L.D. civilian car. Meaning it looked like a standard, normal silver Honda, but had the functions of a S.H.I.E.L.D. car. It could drive on autopilot, had an assortment of concealed weapons, had a GPS system, had a computer, and had fully functioning air conditioning system. _

" _Clint, do you really have to go over every single pot hole?" She asked. She was in a red dress that went down to her knees. He was in a tuxedo._

" _Hey! I missed the last two," He defended himself. _

" _By rolling over that cone and swerving to miss the curb, yes yes you did manage to avoid those pot holes,"_

" _well, if you le-" their argument was cut short by 2 bullet shot ringing out and colliding with their car with a twang._

" _Sh*t, what was that?" he swore. She glanced behind them in the review mirror and saw 3 men on foot, guns aimed at them._

" _3 behind us,"_

" _And 2 in front, we have maybe 20 seconds before we get in their range. Nat, you take the front and we'll try to lose the ones behind us,"_

" _On it," she said, pressing a button on the dashboard. Silently, a weapons compartment slid into view. Despite the grim situation, Natasha grinned as she selected 2 guns and 5 knives; she always liked challenges. Aside form the weapons the car provided, she also had 5 more knives, a hairpin that sedated her victims, and her widows bites on her person. She unrolled the window, slid silently down. 4 more seconds… she clicked the safety off. 3 more seconds…. She took a deep breath and aimed. As soon as they got in gun range, shots were immediately exchanged. She shot one in the leg before the other one returned her fire. She ducked back in the car. By now they were only a few yards apart. She rolled up the window. After 3 years of a functioning partnership, they had formed a sort of mental connection._

" _Oh Nat," he said shaking his head. Swerving, he hit the man, there was a surprisingly jarring jolt from the collision. _

"_D*mn," she muttered, " 1 car tailing us, about 25 yards behind us though," to make matters seem even worse, it started raining._

" _Taylors really should've picked a better day for his wedding," Clint said. Taylors was the groom at the wedding and was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent._

" _It's an indoor wedding," she said, as if there was no car tailing them at high speeds._

" _we have momentarily lost them," _

" _Clint, put it on autopilot,"_

" _Why?"_

" _Just do it," she hissed. He put it on autopilot._

" _put the destination for 2 blocks down,"_

" _Why?" though he always questioned, her he trusted her judgment._

" _It just started raining so they'll follow our tracks. But they'll be following an empty car because we'll be waiting for them. They'll be caught in our crossfire because we'll be on opposite rooftops." He had to admit it, it was a brilliant plan._

_Not 3 minutes later, a car swerved into an empty, desolate alley. This was one of the larger alleys however and their SUV barely qualified in terms of size. It wa a dead end alley and at the end of it was their abandoned car. Slowly, 7 men crept out of the car. These men were professionals; they hardly made a noise as they slunk towards their car. Far away in the distance, sirens blared and a car horn went off._

" _On my mark." She instructed. Had they been in any other situation, they would have spent 8 minutes arguing over who called the shots, but they didn't. "5…4..3….2….1," on 1 they both fired from their respective positions. Caught in their crossfire, they were soon demolished. _

" _I got 4," she said. They were back in their normal, silver Honda, they had a wedding to attend._

" _But you had more on your side," she merely shrugged in response, he should've picked her side._

" _D*mnit, I got a smudge of dirt on my dress. It was new too!"_

" D*mn, we're good, we did all that on our way to a wedding and we weren't even late!" Clint said.

" But that dress! It was new and I only got to wear it that once because that idiot at the wedding spilled wine on it,"

" But if I recall correctly, it was a d*mn good red wine,"

"Clint,"

" Yeah?"

" Thanks,"

" For what?"

" Making me want to live and believing I wasn't just a soulless, f*cked up monster." Natasha said.

He smiled, " Well in some way we're all f*cked up and need some one to save us," He positioned himself in her bed so he was half on and half off. Even 3 years ago she would have rebuffed him and shoved him off, but now she accepted his presence and, though she would never admit it, even welcomed it.

30 minutes later, everyone showed up to find Natasha sleeping in Clint's arms, her head resting on his toned, muscular arm and him gripping her waist.

" You know, I think we should just come back later," Pepper whispered.

**For any one who's seen captain America TWS, i got the bit on the air conditioner form that :). please review, it really helps me.**


	23. Chapter 23

**Sorry its; taken me awhile to update, i haven't had much inspiration. big thanks to hopelessromantic1599, Guest, blackhawk21, queenlmno,Blonde4ever, Ensignily, WhispersOfWings, and JWolf28 for the reviews. i may not update for another month or so because we're going on vacation for a week and then I'm goin to a summer camp. But i might post one last one before i leave :)**

Pepper quietly peeked in the door. Inside the room was Natasha talking to Clint. This was the happiest Clint had been since Natasha had fallen into a coma.

"How did S.H.I.E.L.D. and its infinite intel fail to get that tiny detail!?" Natasha laughed. She was sitting up in her bed. He was sitting in a chair next to her.

" How did they not figure out that our target was gay?"

" Yeah, I noticed when he was paying more attention to you than me, a hot piece of sh*t,"

"I'm irresistible," Clint grinned. Natasha rolled her eyes.

" Hey guys," Pepper greeted. " Nice to see you all awake now Natasha."

" Yeah," Natasha agreed. She had not told any one about her choice to die or wake up.

" What were you guys talking about?"

" Oh, just a mission we got a couple of years ago, I was supposed to seduce the target, but, it turned out he was gay," Natasha explained.

" So, obviously, I had to come in and save the day," Clint said haughtily.

" Oh yes, you did a wonderful job, it only took you an hour and a half."

" Hey!" Clint exclaimed. "I don't seduce people, that's you're job!" In truth, an hour and a half was actually a pretty good time for some one who only had a week of training in that area. If it were up to him, Clint would have certainly skipped over that portion of his training, but, as fate had it, it was not up to him and he learned how to seduce some one. "Plus, you've had way more practice at this than I have," at this, Natasha's unusually genuinely carefree expression morphed into one of more regret and sadness. " Tash, I didn't mean- you know that I didn't mean to…"

" You think that being taught to seduce men by the age of 13 is something I wanted? You know that I have regrets from my past. You know that I wish I wasn't what I am." Natasha hissed. Pepper exceedingly started to feel that she should not be in the middle of 2 assassins' argument.

" I said I would meet Tony for lunch at 12, so I'd better get going, its 10:45," Pepper said. Everyone knew it was a lame *ss excuse, but no one cared. Pepper walked out. The door slammed behind her.

" Nat, I know that you have basically been through h*ll, I didn't mean to-"

" You know, I would give up almost anything to be normal and have a normal f*cking childhood with normal f*cking parents and normal siblings and normal life."

" Its no use Natasha! You can't change the past, but you can rewrite the future, you can only move forward from your mistakes."

" Mistakes! You're calling everything I've done and everyone I've killed mistakes! You mean I should just forget everything from my past. All my targets. All the people I have killed. My training. Who I am." Natasha said. Her fingers were gripping the sheets.

" You know what I saw when I first saw you? I saw a girl that wanted an out, someone who wanted to move away from her past. Now you're saying that you can never move away from your past. That you will always be a monster. But you never were and never will be, Natasha.

"I can't take this sh*t anymore." Natasha flung her sheets off her. He watched as she stormed out the door. She wasn't discharged until 3 more days… he just needed to let her cool off.

Her bare feet were pounding against the hard floor of S.H.I.E.L.D's recovery level. She thought of her decision while she was in a coma. _Clint's right, there's no use dwelling on the past. Yes, I regret that I have killed innocents, but there's nothing I can do about it now. There's only what's ahead. _She stopped by her S.H.I.E.L.D. room. She put on a shirt and shorts. Habitually, she tucked a gun in her waistband and 3 knives on her person.

" Taxi!" she called. Soon enough a taxi rolled into view. She told him to drop her off a block from the tower. Publically, the Avengers were Steve, Bruce, Tony, and Thor. As her and Clint's lives were based on anonymity, they were not officially "Avengers". Slamming the door behind her, she stepped onto the pavement. Avoiding everyone, she made her way to her room and sat on her bed. The past few days had been taxing. Her body was exhausted form repairing itself. She fell asleep.

_She was 7 years old. The knife she held in her hand was cold and heavy. There was another girl, Klara, she was in the same program as her and a year older. Across from her, Klara was also holding a knife. They were slowly circling each other. Her steps softly felt the ground beneath her. A stray piece of hair stuck to her face, but she didn't bother wipe it off. She was patient for a 7 year old. With no warning, Klara lunged, knife poised, she rolled out of the way, but her knife nicked her. It wasn't a bad wound, just a little scratch in her opinion. Klara recovered quickly, a burning hatred in her bright blue eyes. Klara was angry, she would have to learn to suppress her emotions. She was angry and was therefore more probable to making mistakes. She saw Klara's legs tense, she was going to lunge at her again. Klara recklessly lunged again. But she was ready this time and she dove out of the way just in time to avoid being stabbed in the stomach. Before Klara could recover, she had her pinned. Klara was older and stronger, but she was faster and more agile. This was kill or be killed. Natasha had no control over her dream state 7 year old body. Before Klara could push her off, she had her knife poised at her throat. She carefully cut through Klara's skin. She felt the blade cut through the jugular, just as she had practiced with the dummies. Finally, Klara stopped struggling and fell limp underneath her. _

Clint found Natasha asleep in her room. After more speculation, it became more apparent that she was not so much as sleeping, but trapped in some nightmare.

"Hey, Tash, wake up." he said as he gently shook her. Before she was fully awake, she had a gun loaded and pointed at his head. Per usual, he did not fight this reflex but went along with it.

" Nat, its me, Clint. You're in your room." He said in a soft tone. When she recognized him and resolved that he was not a threat, she lowered the gun and fell into his arms. " What was it about?" he asked softly.

" The first person I killed. I was 7 at the time." She said. "She was probably 7 or 8, but she was older than me. You know how everyone remembers the first person they killed the best?"

" Yeah,"

" Well, she had auburn hair, blue eyes, sharp cheekbones, and was about 4 feet tall." Natasha whispered.

" Its okay, we all regret taking that first shot," he comforted. " but I suppose if you hadn't killed her, she would have killed you and we never would have met."

" I love you"

" I love you too," he replied.

" Well this is gonna be awkward," Tony said. He had just walked in to hear " I love yous" being exchanged. As both assassins simultaneously turned and glared at him, he added, "and possibly quite life threatening." With no more words, he ran out, closing the door.

**So, Clint and Natasha had their first fight as a couple, but it ended well... But then Tony happened. tell me what you think, I always appreciate reviews and plot ideas. if you didn't read my note in the beginning, I_ might_ not post anything for another month.**


	24. Chapter 24

**so, after some crazy righting, I managed to get this chapter up! I wrote a lot, so there actually might be another post. That is for all the awesome reviews, please keep up with them and tell me what you think.**

" Tony!" Steve screamed. The tower residents who were not already awake, Thor, Jane, and Clint, were abruptly awakened to this shriek. Those who were already awake were there shortly

" Ummm, Steve?" Natasha asked. Steve was awkwardly standing on one foot in the middle of the hall. A towel covered the bottom of his body and his hair was fuchsia pink. The reason to his one legged position was due to the fact that he was in the middle of several (193) little cups of water. Evidently Steve had just gotten out of the shower, his hair pink, and found himself in a throng of tiny cups of water.

" Oh, good, you found my little April fools surprise," Tony said, snapping a picture. "JARVIS, put this in my blackmail file,"

" Yes sir,"

" Really Tony, you couldn't think of anything better?" Clint scoffed, having just arrived at the April fools scene.

Tony smirked, " Oh, I saved the best for- D*mnit!" with that, he walked away.

" What was that shriek? I don't think it was Natasha or Pepper who uttered it and Jane was asleep next to me? Has another female taken residence in this tower?" Thor asked. Steve looked down.

" No Thor, that, that was Steve," Bruce laughed.

"Oh,"

* * *

><p>" So, about what Tony said earlier, he's going to prank us," Natasha said. She and Clint were sitting on her bed. Well, Natasha was sitting. Clint was still laughing at the events that took place earlier that morning.<p>

" He already got Pepper and Thor,"

_Pepper walked out of the bathroom. When she looked in the mirror however, she saw that her hair had turned grey. _

" _Anthony Edward Stark, get over here right now!" She screamed. _

" _What's wrong Pep?" _

" _You know exactly what's wrong Tony," she growled. " I gave an important meeting today,"_

" _Which is why," Tony said as he produced a bottle that appeared to be a hairspray bottle. " I made this," _

" _This had better work Tony," as Pepper sprayed her hair, it did not turn back to its usual strawberry blonde, it turned into a disgusting grey green color, rather resembling a hair job gone wrong. " 3 strikes and you're out," she warned as Tony produced another bottle._

" _This one works, I swear! I swear!" Pepper sprayed her hair. This time, it turned white. "Just wait!" Tony yelped. Slowly, Pepper's hair turned back to its natural color._

" And for Thor, he painted his soap with clear nail polish and put a picture of Loki in a jar so he though that Loki had been trapped in there and we were going to eat him," Clint summed up, an amused look on his face at the eating part.

"So that means you, me and Bruce are going to be pranked sometime."

" Yep, I guess so," Clint said.

" You up for going down to the gym?"

" Nat, you still have halfway healed ribs and a broken arm."

" D*mnit! Stupid injuries," Natasha cursed. She always hated it when she was unable to do something because she was not in the physical condition. "We could shoot,"

" Let's go,"

" Right only, my left arm is broke," Natasha said. She was naturally left handed, but over the years was forced not to favor a hand. He was a lefty too, but was good at both.

" Deal,"

* * *

><p>When Bruce fell victim to April fools day, he was not as verbal as Steve. Instead, he silently fumed. He walked into his lab and found hundreds of little white mice crawling around his lab, his lab! Luckily, everything was metal and the mice were merely a nuisance, not hazardous.<p>

"JARVIS, can you get all these furry pests out of my lab?"

" I will do that Dr. Banner,"

" Good,"

* * *

><p>Tony's attempt to prank Natasha and Clint miserably failed. When Clint got back from shooting with Natasha, he caught Tony putting models of Legolas, hawks, and Robin Hood all over his room.<p>

"Tony. Get. Out. The. H*ll. Out. Of. My. Room. And clean everything you put in here." Clint growled.

"JARVIS, you were supposedly warn me if he was coming!" Tony yelped. " and no, you have it clean this up," he said, as if walking in on Clint and Natasha sharing a moment was Lethal enough. He was just asking for someone to plan misfortune for him.

Tony's attempt to prank Natasha also failed. He had planned to dye her suit, but it turned out her suit was made out of a material that prevented it from getting dyed or marked on. D*mn.

"Tony, really?"

"what?" He said, trying to pull his facial muscles into an expression of innocence. His face turned out looking like a demented baboon with rabies.

" You tried to dye my suit. And, your face, looks like a

"what...? I Have no idea what your talking about,"

"Bullsh*t,"

"Fine, but it didn't work did it?"

"You still tried," with that confession, Natasha stalked away, she hadsome planning to do.

* * *

><p>"What is this great building?" Thor asked Pepper, pointing to her calendar at the picture of the Empire State building.<p>

" that's the empire state building, you should definitely see it some time."

"See what sometime?" Tony walked in.

" The Empire State Building,"

"Oh yeah, we should all see it, let's go today," Tony offered. "JARVIS, tell every one that we're leaving for the empire state building in an hour,"

"Yes sir,"

* * *

><p>Tony was stuck. He had been eating his falafel on his balcony, when when he found himself stuck in a net hanging 78 floors above New York.<p>

"Um JARVIS, out me down."

"Sir, I have been momentarily overridden."

"by whom?"

"Agent Romanoff,"

"RED!" he howled.

"yes sir," Before JARVIS was finished rebooting, the net that held him captive suddenly released him. Before he got caught in the net, he had drank 4 cups of coffee and a glass of Jin in tonic. As he didn't think the citizens of new york would take kindly to pee being rained down upon them, he held it. For an hour and a half. When he got to the bathroom he went straight to the toilet, without even looking in the mirror to check his hair. He didn't notice the clear film of saran wrap that covered the toilet. He noticed it only when his pee splashed up onto his new, grey Armani suit.

"RED!" he howled, not for the first time that day.

* * *

><p>" Now that I am not wearing a pee covered suit," Tony glared at Natasha, " I was thinking we could go see the empire state building."<p>

" I only hung you 78 stories above New York for an hour and a half, I had nothing to do with the toilet," Natasha shrugged. Tony turned and glared at Clint, Bruce, and Steve.

" I had help from Steve and Bruce," Clint said. "Although we may have coordinated our plans with Natasha."

"So, when are we seeing this empire state building?" Thor asked

"Hey, you okay?" Clint softly asked. After waiting forever, to get to the top, they had finally arrived. "What, you think we're going to push you off?" Natasha turned almost terrified. "What... when did they do it?"

"I was 11 when one night the red room cuffed me and pushed me off a helicopter."

_She woke up to the sound of a helicopter. Her hands were tightly cuffed behind her. Judging by the breathing, there were 8 other people in the helicopter._

_"Listen up, 1 by 1 you will be pushed off, if you make it, you will land in a place you recognize, those who do not succeed, will be dead, and therefore no longer in the program." she heard Ivan's harsh voice cut through the thick silence. She silently waited as the sounds of girls being unbuckled and then got closer, until finally she was roughly unbuckled. Hands like iron gripped her shoulders. suddenly, the sound of wind grew louder. Her hair whipping around her face, she could feel the perpetual russian air underneath her. A parachute was strapped to her back._

_"You're lucky there even giving you parachutes Natalia," he whispered in her ear. She recognized him as one of the guards, Afanasy? Eduard? He made sure the handcuffs were securely on. Before she could adequately prepare herself, hands grabbed her back and sent her falling into the silent, endless darkness. she knew she had to uncuff herself before she hit the rocky, inevitable ground. Her heart leapt into her throat. Far wouldn't help her. She had to use her training. She twisted her hand, trying to wiggle out if the cuffs. they were too tight. The ground was now in sight, rushing toward her. The handsuffs were still tightly on. The ground was steadily growing clearer and nearer. Desperately, she roughly twister her wrist in an attempy to escape. She heard a crack, but was too much in shock to feel the pain. She had maybe 4 minutes before she would feel anything. With her wrist at that unnatural angle, she was able to get out of the cuffs. With the ground even closer, she reached to pull her parachute. Her long, red hair whipped around her face. She pulled the string. Abruptly, she was jerked from her free fall. The ground became clearer. lightly, her feet touched the ground. The sturdy, unwavering ground._

"God Tash, you've never told me that," Clint pulled her into a hug.

"Well, it's not even that, falling scares me, it's more like, how could they have pushed an 11 year old girl out of a a helicopter, you know?" she said. " I mean, after St. Petersburg, how could person not be afraid to fall that distance?"

"well, maybe someone who knew that there was a handsome, amazing man waiting to shoot a grappling arrow at them,"

"That's my point, I didn't know you were going to do that," Natasha laughed.

**even though April fools is past, I just had this tight about planking. I hope you liked it. Please please review, plot ideas are always welcome.**


	25. Chapter 25

**hey! sorry i haven't updated in a while, i got back from camp a week ago and haven't really been in a writing mood. Thank you for all the awesome reviews too. this chapter is kinda short, but i wanted to get something up so...**

Jane ran her hands threw her hair. She had been on hold for the caterer for the wedding for 20 minutes. It was May 4th, 1 week until the wedding and the caterer had messed up their order. Only 2 months pregnant, finding a wedding dress with Darcy, Pepper, and Natasha proved to be no predicament, aside from the snotty, rude saleswoman at one store. The color theme was to be robins egg blue and dusty rose, and the bridesmaids, Darcy, Pepper and Natasha, came by splendid dresses that fit the color scheme.

"How's the planning going?" Pepper asked, walking in.

" Okay, I guess, it's not as bad as it could be,"

"Well do you need help with anything?" asked Pepper.

"That's okay, I got this, you should go and relax, god knows what you've had to put up with at Stark Industries,"

Pepper snorted, "Yeah, like today 2 guys tried to hit on me. Do you not see the ring on my finger? Well let me know if you need anything," Pepper walked out. Alone in the room, Jane wondered if it was weird that she invited Fury. She had never really talked to him; she had had 2 complete conversations with him, but then again she didn't really want to anger the director.

* * *

><p>The director of S.H.I.E.L.D was currently at his desk, waiting for a certain agent Romanoff.<p>

" There has been intel that the director thought you should know," Coulson said as he and Natasha walked into Fury's office.

" Natasha," Fury started as Natasha sat down. " I'm telling you this because I think you have the right to know. As you know, 6 years ago Ivan Petrovich was killed in an explosion." Even at the name of her deceased KGB handler, the man that tore her away from her family at the age of 5, the man that had ruthlessly punished and tormented her for 15 years of her life, Natasha stiffened. " But recent intel has informed us that he is in fact alive." Fury stopped to let this sink in.

" Are you sure?" Natasha's voice was barely above a whisper. Ivan Petrovich was the only man she truly feared.

" As of right now he is in Madrid, Spain and under the protection of the Spanish government. Any confrontation with the government pertaining this matter will send him fleeing, it may be years until we find him again. How old would he be? 50, 55?"

"52," Natasha said. " Are they aware that the man they are 'protecting' has been responsible for dozens of assassinations? And at least one assassination of the Spanish CEO in Russia?"

"We're not sure of that, but if we were to officially send agents in it would be like declaring war on Spain. I could however, give you a 1 month vacation, you could do whatever you want in that month,"

" Alright," Natasha said.

" I will see you in a month then, or at Ms. Fosters wedding, though I just barely received an invitation." Natasha walked down to the parking garage, her face one of determination and stone. Weaving her corvette through the Saturday morning traffic, Natasha's head was racing. She had made sure Ivan was in the house when it exploded. She had secured him to the bomb. They had even found remnants of his body. _What am I going to tell Clint?_ Natasha thought. If she told him he would want to go with her, but she had to do this, alone. _Sh*t, the wedding is in a week. I'll have to wait until after._

* * *

><p><strong>2 days before the wedding<strong>

" Oh my God!" Jane exclaimed, to a surprised Darcy and Natasha. " The main singer in the band has caught a sore throat, a _sore throat! _ Am I going to have to walk down the aisle to a raspy voice?"

" Calm down Jane! A couple spoonfuls of medicine and he'll sound fine," Darcy soothed. " And if he's still not better, than I'll sing. In fourth grade I won the talent show singing 'Amazing Grace'"

"Um…. yeah, I would just have the sick singer sing," Jane said.

"We've all heard you sing in the shower and I'm pretty sire I speak for everyone, but we're really tired of listening to Yankee Doodle." Natasha said. The past couple of days Natasha had made up her mind to leave 2 days after the wedding and not to tell Clint until she had to. Finding Ivan and killing him would be something she had to do on her own, she just wasn't sure how he would take the news.

" So," Tony walked in. " Thor's Bachelor party is tomorrow, and we still have to do some stuff. Does any one know where I would get veet?" he was met with a minutes of silence. Natasha just didn't know how to respond, Darcy didn't even know what veet was, and Jane had taken to half listening to Tony over the past couple of days after he told her for the 27th time that they should have the wedding in a giant model of one of his suits.

" What…?" Jane asked.

" Does anyone know where I could find some veet?" Tony repeated impatiently.

" Tony Stark, you are NOT going to shave Thor's head the day before our wedding, am I understood?"

"Fine, fine…." Tony grumbled.

" I thought I would have Bruce and Steve to keep you under control," Jane muttered as Tony slunk out.

"Yeah, well, sometimes Tony gets too crazy, like the time he tried to lift a house with his suit, after watching Up," Darcy said.

"Yeah, the owners were not too pleased with him, their 9 year old son was in there while he tried to lift it. They were NOT happy." Natasha said.

" Hey, do you guys know where an easily accessible small boulder would be? Thor bachelor party is tomorrow night, so…" Clint trailed off at the glare the women were giving him and decided to go somewhere else to continue his search for a small boulder.

* * *

><p><strong>1 day before the wedding<strong>

Natasha stared at her suitcase. She would have to pack lightly and take weapons that would pass security. TSA would probably not take too kindly to several guns, a grenades, and quite a few knives being taken onto the plane. Natasha decided to bring her inconspicuous instruments of espionage such as her widow's bites, acid lipstick, earring grenades, tracking watch, video sunglasses, custom made, and penknives. Packing all her stuff again, Natasha slid them into her concealed drawer.

**hope you liked this chapter. please review, plot ideas are always welcome.**


	26. Chapter 26

**i had a little trouble writing this chapter, but i hope you like it. Please review at the end, it really helps me. And thank you to JWolf28 and Ensignily for the reviews!  
><strong>

**The wedding**

Jane twirled in the mirror. Her eggshell white dress was adorned with lace and flared out in a twisty fashion. Her brown hair was softly curled down her back.

" Can you call Steve in here?" Jane asked.

" Yeah, sure," Pepper responded, and minute later Pepper appeared with Steve in tow.

" Wow, you amazing Jane," he complimented.

" Thanks. Is Thor okay? Cause for a while he thought that weddings were funerals, so…" she trailed off.

" He's fine," Steve assured.

* * *

><p>"So, you look nice," Clint said as they walked down the aisle.<p>

Natasha softly smiled, her curls lightly bouncing, " That's all you have to say?"

"Well, that and you're wearing the arrow necklace I got you," I whispered. "I must say, I have fabulous taste," Natasha smiled and lightly shoved him, but not too much as to draw attention. At the center part they split and stood to the side and watched Jane walk down the flower petal bedecked aisle. The ceremony was a blur for Natasha. A lot of words and clapping. A warm summer breeze blew in, making the balloons wave.

"So, is this wedding better than Pepper and Tony's?" Clint asked. They sitting outside in courtyard, the music in the dancing hall could be faintly recognized.

Natasha smiled and leaned on his shoulder, " Yes, but purely because Jane and I bet when Tony would propose. I made 10 dollars,"

" Wait, you really made a bet without me?" Clint was incredulous.

"Yep,"

"So, changing the subject, you got cleared for active duty, and we haven't gotten a mission"

"Yeah," Natasha said.

"It's been almost 2 weeks, and Fury hasn't given us a mission,"

"Well..." Natasha trailed off, the debate of when to tell Clint about Ivan resurfacing.

"What?" he pressed.

" You know how when Ivan died I started to get better?" Natasha asked. When Ivan had "died" Natasha's nightmares started to get a bit better. Ever since Fury had told her that he was alive, her nightmares were getting worse.

"Well, apparently…. He's alive,"

"What?"

Natasha bit her lip, " Fury called me to base and told me last week,"

"And why you didn't tell me?"

"I don't know, I just, I have to do this by myself Clint,"

"Were you ever planning on telling me? Or were you just going to go fly off to who knows where," the conversation was quickly escalating to an argument.

"I have to do this Clint, and I told you didn't I?"

"Well than I'm going with you. You don't have to face him alone Tash, I know what he did to you,"

" Then you would know that I have to do this alone. Clint, this man has haunted me for over 10 years." Natasha said exacerbated. "Look, can we just talk about this when we get back to the tower?"

"Fine,"

"Right, we don't want to dampen Jane and Thor's happy day do we?" Natasha said. The rest of the ceremony was not as delightful as both Natasha and Clint hoped it would be. Their unfinished argument resting just underneath the surface as they continued to act normally, dancing and eating and laughing and smiling.

"So, you want to go after Ivan by yourself," Clint stated, they were back at the tower and in the deserted kitchen. Tony, Pepper, Darcy, Bruce, and Steve were all in their rooms and Thor and Jane were who knows where, except for Heimdall, who saw and knew everything

"Clint, even after all I have told you about him, you still don't understand how much he has haunted me and made me do things I will always regret. But killing him is at least one death on my hands I will never regret."

"So you were just going to run off, kill Ivan, and come back without ever telling me? I mean yes, I probably have trust issues, but after everything we've been through and you still didn't tell me for a week. For all I know you would've run off without even telling me. How can I even trust you?" Clint's question was met with silence was met with silence.

"You know, I thought being in a relationship meant that you didn't have to do hard stuff by yourself anymore. Obviously I was wrong," Clint said, his face stone.

"Fine, if that's how you want it to be, " Natasha said, "We'll just break up then," Saying nothing, Clint walked out of the room. Natasha stared at him as he walked out. She thought that he wouldn't take the news well, but she never really thought that they would end up breaking up. Natasha followed and made her way to her room where she promptly lay down on her bed. _Why couldn't he just let just let me do this?_ Natasha thought. _He is the only person I truly trust and now everything that took 7 years to build is broken in just one conversation. God Natasha, how much can you f*ck up in one life?_ Natasha sat up, her eyes the only part of her that portrayed how miserable she was. She had made the first person to ever see good in her, the first person to start liking her, to hate her_. How many more times can I screw up my life?_

"Hey, Natasha?" Pepper knocked on the door, unaware of the drama that had occurred not 20 minutes ago.

"Yes?" Natasha replied, her voice neutral.

"Umm, can I come in?"

"Yeah, the doors unlocked,"

"So," Pepper said, still completely oblivious to Natasha's misery, " Tony and I were going to go to Malibu for a week and we were wondering if you guys could come along, it would be like a double date!"

"Like, me and Clint?"

"Yeah, of course,"

"When would you guys be leaving?"

"In 4 days," _Good, I'll be in Spain by then_ thought Natasha. Her and Clint's fight had not changed her plans, but she decided to leave in 2 days, not the next one.

" Let me ask Clint," Natasha lied smoothly.

"Okay,"

Clint was sat the shooting range. Arrow after arrow hit the bull's eye. _Why the h*ll does she think that she has to do everything alone? Why couldn't she just let me help her for once? _Clint thought angrily. _But maybe you should've just let her go and we would still be fine. But she doesn't get that she doesn't have to do everything alone!_

When Natasha got up the next morning she made sure that all her arrangements were still in place. She would leave the next day at 3:00 pm and arrive in Madrid at 6:00 am local time the next day and had arranged to check some of her more conspicuous guns and knives to Spain. What she did not plan for, however, was the dinner Pepper planned that night to send Thor and Jane off to Asgard, meaning she had to see to Clint, whom she had been avoiding.

"Agent Romanoff, miss Potts has asked me to inform you that the dinner reservation is at 7:00 pm tomorrow night." JARVIS announced

"Okay JARVIS," Natasha said. The dinner would not upset her plans; it was the night before she was leaving.


	27. Chapter 27

**sorry i haven't updated in a little bit, i've been getting together with friends a lot and couldn't figure out how to write this chapter. As always, a big thanks to the people that reviewed, it was really encouraging. hope you like this chapter!**

Natasha waited impatiently for the elevator to arrive. Despite all the high tech appliances, Tony had yet to come up with more efficient elevators. Generally, Natasha didn't like elavators; they were practically deathtraps in her reasoning, but as the remaining alternative was to walk down 74 flights of stairs, provided she did not want to jump, the elevator it was. The restaurant they were going to was relatively fancy, so she was wearing a strapless black floor length dress. The gathered chest part was decorated with white gemstones that went in a flowy pattern. To complete her outfit she had put in long silver earrings. When the elevator finally came, it opened to reveal two waiting to descend Bruce and Clint. Natasha smiled awkwardly; none of the other tower residents had been notified of the break up of their spider and hawk.

"Hey," Natasha greeted.

Bruce responded with a "Hello," while Clint with a nod.

"So, you look nice," Clint stated. And Natasha couldn't help notice that those were his exact words he said the night they broke up. She almost responded with a 'that's all you have to say' but decided not to.

"Thanks, it took about 3 hours going shopping with Pepper and Darcy," While not on joking terms, as long as the team didn't know about their break up, they were on civil terms. Clint laughed in return, though it did seem a tad forced. Glancing all around the mirror laden elevator, Clint caught a glint of silver on Natasha's chest. She was still wearing the arrow necklace that he had given her. Perhaps there was still hope for their broken relationship, or maybe she had just forgotten to take it off. Finally, after what seemed like hours in the awkward elevator, it finally came to halt.

"Finally, the last of our group has come," Tony said, "The limo's been waiting for like 10 minutes and it's paid by the hour, so…" he grimaced sarcastically. "Your lucky this is on me," he finished, pointing a finger at the latecomers.

"Well if your elevator was a bit faster we might've gotten down here faster," Bruce said. Evidently Natasha was not the only one with issues pertaining the elevator. Group assembled, they all piled into the limo. As all of the couples were expected to sit next to each other, Clint and Natasha ended up against one another.

"So, Thor, how long are you guys going to be in Asgard?" Pepper asked.

"We're not sure yet, but probably a week or two," Jane said.

"Haven't you been there before?" Steve inquired.

"Yes, but-"

Thor's response was cut short by an, "Awww, D*mnit," from Tony. Whilst opening a bottle of gin, the limo encountered a slight bump, causing him to spill a minuscule drop of gin on his suit. "This suit was brand new! Its too soon to retire you," Tony stared forlornly at his 'ruined' suit while the others stared disbelieving at him. It was often said that Tony was too overprotective over his suits. He had once put an employee on probation for not bringing him his coffee with a lid covering it as he 'might spill some on his suit'. Needless to say, said employee soon quit his job at Stark Industries.

"Dude, your suits black, you can't even see where you spilled whatever your drinking this time on your suit." Clint said. Tony merely glared back. Finally, the car came to a rolling stop. They all pile out. As the avengers would be bombarded with the media, they had reserved a whole room.

Dinner was an awkward affair between Clint and Natasha, pretending to be on dating terms with your ex. By the time they were done, Jane and Thor took off to Asgard, and the remaining group returned to the tower.

* * *

><p>Back in her room Natasha proceeded to finish packing. She would be going to Spain as Sasha Hutchinson, a journalist for National Geographic. Natasha created this alias before she joined S.H.I.E.L.D, before they constructed her aliases. Sasha was now 28 and had graduated from Berkeley University with a major in journalism. She had come from a relatively poor family and had done a few model jobs. With Sasha's "dyed" red hair, her natural hair color was blonde, and perfect body, the magazines loved her. Natasha would take as many concealable weapons as she could aboard the plane; a lot, Natasha had snuck less concealable weapons into the pentagon, so airport security was like a picnic in the park. Obviously the American airports need to upgrade their security; something she would bring to light after she dealt with Ivan.<p>

Natasha got up the next morning at 8:00 am, a little later than usual, but then again routines and habits got you killed in her business.

"JARVIS, tell the others where I'm going when they ask, but only if its 48 hours after my plane takes off." Natasha instructed.

"Yes agent Romanoff," JARVIS replied.

Natasha arrived at the airport at 1:30, leaving her ample time to get through the line of security and still leaving time for any unexpected complications. She had flown commercially enough times before she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. to know that there was usually an extremely tedious line to get through security. When it was finally her turn, she lifted her carry ons onto the conveyor belt that would go through the x-ray machine. The coldness of the ground could be felt through her socks as she walked through the metal detector. When it falsely detected no weapons Natasha was allowed to gather her belongings and proceed to her gate. National Geographic paid Sasha relatively well and as a result she obtained a first class seat. Airports were generally chilly. Natasha zipped up her grey jacket over her blue shirt. All around her her enhanced senses picked up everything. Footsteps resounding in large hallways, the smell of greasy food (part of the reason Natasha ate healthily was because her senses were more attuned to greasy, unhealthy food), that sterile smell, almost associated with hospitals, the sound of conversations and shouting and intercoms for late passengers. Finally her plane began boarding. She was on her way to kill Ivan.

Natasha's first class seat was definitely more desirable than that of the middle class passengers. She had a considerable amount of leg room. In front of her there was a small TV that actually had some good movies that would have kept Sasha occupied, but Natasha remained focused on her mission, distractions such as the movies disturbed her focus and planning. So during the 6 hour flight Natasha closed her eyes, letting her other senses see for her, making it look like she was asleep but still planning and thinking. While Natasha was on missions she seldom fell asleep all the way. In the red room she developed a system where she let her mind rest while her body did some monotonous task that involved little brain power for a period of time and then let her body rest with her eyes closed but her senses somewhat alert. This system saved her life several times. Only when she felt completely safe did she let herself fall into a deep sleep. For some time that place had been Clint's arms. But now, she had nothing, no one she wholeheartedly trusted to watch her back. And the lack of sleep was catching up to her. The plane finally touched down with a jolt, marking their arrival in Spain. By the time Natasha disembarked the plane, gathered the weapons and such at Baggage Claim, gotten through the immigration control, and taken the Metro to the correct stop and arrived to her hotel, Hotel Europa, it was 7:30 am.

"Hello," the receptionist greeted. Apparently the receptionists always recognized Americans and selected English to greet.

"Hi, I have a reservation for Sasha Hutchinson,"

"Let me see," you could detect a Spanish accent lacing her words. As the lady tapped on her keyboard Natasha surveyed her surroundings. The walls and floor of the reception hall was marble. She could see three exits and 7 cameras and their blind spots. Around the corner the elevator hummed and soon a family of 3 walked out. Tourists, and judging by their accents, they were from England.

"I need your passport, or an identification card,"

"Here," Natasha smiled, sliding her passport across the desk. The lady examined it and then handed it back to Natasha.

"Your room will be on the 3rd floor, room 342. The elevator is around the corner on your right,"

"Thank you," Natasha smiled as she walked away. Her room was fairly large, with one double bed, a desk, a closet, and large windows that overlooked the small streets of Madrid. The bathroom held a shower, toilet, sink, and counter. Natasha tossed her belongings onto the bed, she would sort them out later. Pulling out her laptop, she hacked into the S.H.I.E.L.D. database and compiled everything S.H.I.E.L.D. knew about Ivan Petrovich into a file. Natasha was cautious and made sure to delete any trace of her hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D. The file on Ivan was written with Russian words, but with French grammar and alphabet and locked with a 9 digit password. Sasha had taken French in college, on the off chance that some one found the file it was an understandable cover. Natasha read over everything she knew about Ivan's current location and security situation. Over the past month he had been seen entering a pension. He almost always had undercover bodyguards with him and at least one lackey to do his bidding. Natasha figured the lackey would be her way in as Ivan always had bodyguards. He would most likely be the weakest and therefore the easiest to get information out of. His name was Gustava Marquez. Natasha did a quick search on him, with the extensive social network Natasha found out that he was 33 years old, was born and raised in Madrid, had no siblings, and had brown hair and eyes and was about 5'8".

Natasha had not eaten since the 'breakfast' on the plane (the plane food could hardly be counted as food, but she had eaten worst) so she went out to get lunch. The touristy part of Madrid that she was staying in had lots of restaurants and shops. Natasha ended up going to a café. There were miscellaneous newspapers dispersed across the various tables so Natasha pick one up. Along with French, Sasha had also accumulated enough Spanish to get by. Natasha, however, was fluent. Scanning over the current news, Natasha's eyes landed on a familiar name in the obituary section. Maria Marquez, age 30, died with osteosarcoma. Gustava had no siblings, so Maria must have been a cousin or married into the family. A plan started to formulate in Natasha's mind. Maria may not have been his sister, but you could bet he was at least going to attend her funeral.


	28. Chapter 28

**i apologize for not updating sooner. school just started and im still getting bak into the gist of things. please please review at the end, it really encourages and helps me get ideas. hope you like it :)**

_Sneaking into funerals is not hard,_ thought Natasha as she sat down on the cold, wooden bench. Generally people who died were old, so the majority of the people attending funerals were old, most older people were always cold, so why were chapel and churches always so d*mn cold? Something Natasha would never quite fully understand. While listening to people talk about how Maria was too young to die, how Maria was such an inspiring person, how it was unfair that osteosarcoma had claimed a young, innocent victim, Natasha searched for Gustava. She found him in the second row wearing a dark navy blue suit. He was Maria's only attending family member to not be wearing black, even Maria's third cousin's aunt was wearing black. Evidently he was not close to Maria.

"And so after a brief closing led by Valencia Perez, Maria's loving mother, we will adjourn to a dining area, where food will be served." Valencia then went on to talk for another 20 minutes before the guests were released to the dining place.

* * *

><p>"So, has any one seen Natasha?" Steve asked. He had not seen her since the dinner 3 days ago, and was starting to get mildly concerned.<p>

" Yeah, speaking of which, the last time I saw her was at Jane and Thor's farewell dinner thing," Bruce said. Steve, Bruce, Clint, Tony, and Pepper were all in one of the living rooms watching Star Trek.

"Yeah, and she knows that tonight's movie night, so why isn't she here?" Pepper said.

"Hey Legolas, any idea where your girlfriend is?" Tony asked.

Clint leaned forward from the couch and snorted "Natasha and I aren't exactly on great terms right now,"

"What? You guys had a fight?" Steve exclaimed.

"Yeah,"

"well, how are you guys now?" Pepper asked.

"And where the h*ll is Natasha?" Tony asked. Upon no answer Tony decided to call upon his trusted AI. "J?"

"Yes, mister Stark?"

"Where's Natasha?"

"Agent Romanoff departed for Spain, 57 hours ago" Jarvis informed them.

"What? Why?" Tony demanded. He was met with silence, as Jarvis had never been told or picked up on the reason of Natasha's sudden departure.

"She has a job she needs to do there," Clint said quietly.

"But usually she tells us when she goes on missions," Bruce said. They all looked at Clint.

"This one isn't associated with SH.I.E.L.D," Clint explained.

* * *

><p>"So, how did you know Maria?" Natasha asked Gustava.<p>

"I'm her cousin, and you are…?"

"I'm Sasha, Maria and I became friends when because I did an exchange program in Barcelona for high school," Natasha explained. "You're her cousin?"

"Yes, but I only saw her 3 or 4 times a year because we lived in Madrid and her family lived in Barcelona. Were you and Maria close? She never mentioned you, but we were not that close so…"

"She was my best friend in school, but right before I left to go back to the states, we had a huge fight and never got back together. I was so sorry to hear that she died," Natasha held back a sob. "So, do you live in Madrid?"

"Yes, I do, right by Plaza del Sol," _Plaza Del Sol, convenient,_ thought Natasha,_ right by my hotel_.

"Did you come to Madrid just for Maria's funeral?" Gustava asked.

"I'm a journalist, and I actually happened to be in Avila, when I heard, so I hopped on a train and came here,"

Gustava took a sip of his wine. "Have you been to Madrid before?"

"It's crazy, I've been to all sorts of places: Paris, London, Vienna, Libya, Azerbaijan, even Japan, but never Madrid," Natasha was slowly drawing out his weaknesses and manipulating him.

"Nothing worthy to write about I guess then," Gustava laughed, drawing attention from the crowd of mourners.

"No, no, its just that my boss never has me go there, but I've always wanted to even since I was little,"

"Have you gotten lost at all, Madrid is a very confusing place,"

"Yes! When I first arrived here I spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out which line to take to my hotel," Natasha thought she needed to be just a little more vulnerable looking for this man to fall for her.

"Well, maybe I could show you around a bit, later this week. Your so lovely I want to see you tomorrow, but my job…" Gustava trailed off.

"I would love that, but surely you could get some time off tomorrow, it is Sunday…." Natasha pressed.

"I wish I could, but my boss can be very demanding," Gustava said, "Is there a Plaza by your hotel that I could meet you at?"

"I think its… Plaza De Son or Solo or something," Natasha said, knowing full well that it was Plaza Del Sol.

"Plaza Del Sol?"

"Yes, that's it,"

"So, I'll meet you there on Monday at 12:00?"

"Sounds good," Natasha said.

Natasha looked up from her text. She and Clint had developed a system where whenever one need to contact the other hey would text each other on their normal, civilian phones. The text was with a Russian alphabet, with Danish grammar, and English words. If the message was somehow intercepted, it would appear to 91%of earth's population that it was gibberish. The message read:

Hi Clint, I'm Madrid right now and I'm okay.

I may have a lead on Ivan. I'm sorry.

There was no need for her to say who it was, as he would know it was her. Message sent, Natasha looked up from her phone, she had been waiting in the shade of one of the awning for Gustava. It was 12:11 and the b*stard was late. Waiting for Gustava in the sweltering heat, Natasha reflected on her previous night's dream.

_She opened her eyes with a start and was greeted with a white, blinding light. A bucket of ice water had been unceremoniously dumped on her. Biting, metal cuffs bit into her wrists, leaving red marks. _

"_so your sure the light will not harm their eyes," a voice cut through the silence like a knife through butter. _

"_I am fairly certain their eyes will not be affected." although still temporarily blinded, Natasha's other senses remained alert. The raspy, harsh voice was Ivan's and the one that had just spoken was one of the red room 'doctors' who experimented new ways to interrogate their victims on the recruits. "You see," continued the doctor, " the retina is-"_

"_I don't care! Are you completely certain that her eyes will not be harmed? She has been of great use to us already…" Ivan trailed off menacingly._

"_Yes, yes sir, her eyes wi-will be fine," he stammered at the prospect of one of his own torture implements employed on him. The light still bright through her eyelids, Natasha tugged futilely at the handcuffs securing her to the metal chair. Her attempts to escape were discontinued by a firm hand grabbing her arm and a cold knife slicing through her skin._

"_You hesitated Natalia," Ivan reprimanded, matching each word with an inch more of the blade across her skin. "You will never hesitate to kill again."_

"Sasha? Are you alright?" A voice cut through Natasha's hallucination.

"What? Yes I'm fine, just taking in the city and all," Natasha said.

"So, do you want to grab some lunch, or just stay here admiring the metro sign all day?" Gustava asked, a glimmer of humor in his eyes.

"Lunch sounds good," Natasha laughed.

"There is an amazing restaurant close to here, we could go there," he suggested.

"that sounds great,"

* * *

><p><em>He was stalking down a dark, drafty corridor. For some unknown reason, he was holding a gun, not his bow, but that didn't matter; he would still kill his target. Not exactly knowing where he was going, he turned left, one foot in front of another. A slight rustle of cloth caught his attention and he adjusted his course so he was headed for an empty room, an office. Like that of a normal dream, he had no idea what he was doing or where he was going all he knew was that he ahd to kill the girl that was hiding from him. Before he registered what he was doing, he had sprinted across the room and had the girl pinned with one arm, her short, fiery hair sticking to her head with sweat.<em>

"_Clint, please. Its me, Natasha," her voice sounded far away, as if she were speaking to him in slow motion. He heard her words, but their meaning was lost. He raised his gun and for some reason the girl stopped struggling and seemed to relax, yet her green eyes were filled with fear and hurt. Aiming the gun at her forehead, he pulled the trigger and the moment he did so, he seemed to remember that the girl was Natasha. _

_Bing. _ Clint woke with a start. He had killed her. Natasha. Ever since they had broken up his nightmares had been getting so much worse. He looked around in the darkness for the source of his awakening. It was 3:00 am, 2 hours before he had been normally getting up. The _Bing _had come from his phone. Openin git, he saw a text message; from Natasha. It read:

Hi Clint, I'm in Madrid right now and I'm okay.

I may have a lead on Ivan. I'm sorry.

_She's the one that leaves to go hunt the man that's haunted her dreams alone and all she says is I'm sorry? _ Clint fumed. And then he understood why Natasha had to do this. When he was 15 his brother left him on the brink of death on the road. When he finally caught wind of his brother, he dropped everything and went to find him. Although Barney hadn't ruined his life to the extent that Ivan had ruined Natasha's he still needed to find him and set things straight. When he found him , he discovered that he had committed 3 murders and had robbed 9 banks in the past 10 or so years. In other words, Barney was headed for jail. Clint condemned him, putting aside the fact that he _killed_ for a living, while Barney had only killed 3 people. Ivan had made Natasha's whole entire life a living h*ll. She need to kill Ivan, just like he condemned his brother. But then he also remembered that Natasha had come with him, but not interfered. He needed to help her because no matter how strong Natasha though tor knew she was, not matter how much she hated Ivan, she would need help. He was going to Spain.

**so Clint's going to Spain! and they still haven't told the others about their break up. i hope you liked this chapter! please please review:)**


	29. Chapter 29

** I'm really sorry for not updating in a while, I haven't very much time or inspiration with school and whatnot. I promise I'll try to update more often. So, anyways, i hope you like this chapter and please please review at the end, it means so much to me to see what you guys think :)**

Natasha sat at her desk in her room. In truth, she had actually had a good time at lunch with Gustava. He was fairly loquacious, he let slip things a more careful person would not, but not exceedingly so, which meant Natasha could steer the conversation in nearly any direction she chose. Natasha made a mental list of all the things she knew about Ivan and his whereabouts. He was in Madrid. He had been caught on camera entering a pension7 times in the past 5 months. Gustava did errands for him. And most importantly, Ivan's "office" was on Calle De Jardines, only 3 or 4 metro stops from Plaza Del Sol. And that was all she had on him. She had another date with Gustava in 6 days on Sunday and afterwards she planned to trail him.

* * *

><p>Clint sighed as he went through the metal detector at the airport. After he was let through with 4 knives, 2 one man guns (guns that could only be shot by one person, in this case, Clint), and a watch that was connected with a pack of tracking gum, he headed immediately to his terminal. David Writz, his cover, did not like to be late. It was important that he actually board his plane before it took off. As Clint arrived at his terminal, they were boarding the first class passengers. Being a paralegal on one of his rare vacations, David couldn't afford a first class seat. When he was finally boarded, the long 6 hour flight to Madrid began. Though, in retrospect, Clint had once spent 28 straight hours traveling. When the plane finally touched down, it was 10:00 am local time. Clint did not reside in the same hotel as Natasha as it would be too easy for them to coincidentally run into each other. Clint checked into his hotel, Hotel Moderno. His room was a small, quaint room, with two twin size beds. He had a small balcony overlooking a street. Colorful banners hung over the street, making it easy to distinguish one street form the other merely by the color of the banners. He was on the third and topmost floor and could overlook tourists window shopping and street artists making their living. Clint took out his laptop and started his search for Natasha; after all, Madrid was a very large city.<p>

* * *

><p>Natasha's plan to kill Ivan was to simply to track Gustava until he led her to Ivan. She could not try to outsmart him, the man was a genius, and that was from Natasha's point of view. At the red room, he was the brains of the operations. She had decided that surprise would be her greatest success rate. The red room had trained her to be efficient and cunning when completing her missions. Unfortunately, if Ivan got tipped off at her arrival in Madrid, then he would expect her to be efficient and having a plan of how to kill him. The most efficient way to infiltrate Ivan's network would be to abduct one of his higher ranking mercenaries. But interrogating one of his lower cast employees, that was one of the less predictable options out of the 12 strategies of infiltrating his network. Natasha trailed Gustava for 3 days before he showed any sign of working for Ivan. On the third day he walked into a bathroom at the metro station, and didn't come out for another 35 minutes. Natasha took a gamble and decided that Gustava had not had food poisoning and had spent the previous 35 minutes expelling the content of his stomach into the toilet.<p>

"Hola," (hello) a man greeted as he sat next to her on her bench.

"Hola, como estas?" (hello, how are you?) Natasha smiled. To hide her tell tale red hair, Natasha elected to cover it up with a blonde wig, it went about 4 inches longer than her normal hair. She was wearing black leggings, a green shirt, and a blue denim jacket.

"Estoy bien, y tú? (I am good, and you?) he responded. This conversation was not wanted in either party and was born purely for the sake of pleasantries.

"Estoy... bien," Natasha offered a small smile, " Acabo de romper con mi novio," (I'm... okay, i just broke up with my boyfriend) and that was the conclusion of their conversation. _How f*cking long does he need to use that bathroom for? _Natasha thought, hiding behind her blonde wig as she sat, once again reading a magazine, she really wasn't in the mood to wait any longer. She sighed as she stood up and went into one of the family bathrooms. Once the door was locked behind her she quickly pulled a beanie, sweatshirt, and loose jeans out of her bag. Taking off her denim jacket, she pulled on her sweatshirt. It being in the mid 40's she put the jeans over her tight, black leggings. To complete her temporary alias, she tied her blonde wig into a pony tail and pulled her red and black beanie over her head. She spread her hair out, assuring that it looked natural and that there were no bald spots. Taking one last look in the mirror, she traipsed out. Her character was not dressed in apparel who spelled confident, more towards in his mid life crisis and depressed. Natasha had chosen this bathroom for two reasons, one: people would question a man walking out of the woman's restroom, or vice versa- thus the unisex family restroom, and two: she had looked, and there were no camera's pointing toward this particular bathroom. She walked dejectedly toward the men's bathroom, took one deep breath, and headed into the unknown. Aside from the fact that she had already been in a men's bathroom as a man, Germany restrooms were actually pretty nice. Inside she immediately spotted Gustava in a heated discussion with another man by the sinks. There hushed tones made it nearly impossible to catch more than a few times. Inside a stall, Natasha tried to catch as many words as she could.

"-lert him immediately," Gustava said.

"-mistake again. You don't want his wrath," the man said. He was tall, perhaps 6'4", had blonde hair, and wore a blue jacket, red hat and shirt, and crisp, white shoes. The colors sent a disconcerting feeling to Natasha. And then she realized. It was the _exact _colors than those on the Russian flag, the flag that she had saluted for so many years and killed so many people for. Sure, she had seen similar colors before, but never together in this quantity.

" -will tell him immediately," said Gustava and rushed out of the bathroom.

" Be careful, we're nothing to him," the man nodded as Gustava left. As this was the best lead Natasha had, she flushed and walked slowly out the door.

* * *

><p>The cool metal beneath his hands was comforting. The thought that he could sufficiently defend himself let Clint calm down a little. He assembled the last piece to his gun and tucked it in between the headboard and his mattress. He could defend himself without the gun, it's just that it gave him a sort of comfort. Not as much as his bow, but in close quarters guns were more efficient. His jetlagged body told him it was 4:30 pm, but it was 10:30 pm in Madrid and he actually needed to adjust, so the only way to do that was to actually sleep, something he usually avoided due to his proneness to nightmares. Lying on his stomach Clint fell to a restless sleep, one hand on his gun.<p>

* * *

><p>Natasha really did not the man she was impersonating. He was a slow walker and she was starting to get hot in her double set of pants. Probably to make it harder to stalk him, Gustava had decided to walk in the least efficient way to his destination, no that it did anything to dissuade Natasha. He was an idiot. An idiot who wasted a whole bunch of time when the best way in this scenario to keep people from trailing you was to go to the most populated areas. At this time, 10:45, there would still be a lot of people out, milling around in the plazas, shopping, and getting wasted. But Gustava decided to idiotically keep to the deserted streets. He was an idiot. But sort of a cute idiot, Natasha observed.<p>

They finally arrived at their destination. It was in a poorly lit street, one of the less touristy streets by the look of it. Natasha breathed in the cool, crisp, November air. As Gustava knocked on the door, Natasha promptly scaled a fire escape ladder onto the roof across the narrow street, if this was Ivan's hide out, it would be stupid to go in and try to take Ivan on with no weapons other than a small gun and 7 knives. That's how good Ivan was. Laying low, thanking herself for packing a black sweatshirt, Natasha surveyed the scene below her.

A man answered the door, "Who are you and what is your business here?" he stated.

" I am a supporter. And I have come on orders from him to talk to him. It's urgent. This is the bakery is it not?" Apparently this was good enough because the man let Gustava in. Evidently there was a code to entering the premises.


	30. Chapter 30

**Hey sorry, it took me so long to write this chapter, i hope you like this chapter and plese please review at the end, it means so much to me :) and BTW if you didn't know the age of Ultron trailer is out and im so happy about that, it literally made my day when i found out.**

Natasha slid another knife into her boot. As traipsing through Madrid in her tight, black cat suit bearing guns, knives, a smoke bomb, and various other combat appliances would not be very inconspicuous, Natasha was inclined to do her best to conceal her weapons in civilian clothes. She was wearing a tight, red shirt, black leather jacket, jeans, and black boots, the boots were not high heeled because though Natasha thought they were cute, they were really not practical, really, how the f*ck can you run in them? Not saying that she hadn't successfully fought in high heels. Natasha managed to conceal 2 guns, 13 knives, a smoke bomb, and her other 'toys'. She had decided not to delay the inevitable confrontation with Ivan.

She was about to leave when she heard a knock on the door, "servicio de habitaciones," (room service) a voice called through the door. It was actually a stroke of luck that the room service happened to come at that exact moment because as Natasha did one last check around her room, she noticed that she had left her computer on, and it was showing enough that anybody who saw it would know she wasn't a journalist.

"Un momento por favor," she called as she hastily closed her laptop and exited everything out, it would automatically delete anything conspicuous. She quickly but carefully scanned the room to ensure that she did not make any other faults, she found none.

* * *

><p>Clint was riding in a taxi. He wanted to get close to Natasha's hotel to know if she left or not, but not close enough that she would see him.<p>

He was wearing a khaki trench coat to keep the cold wind at bay and a pair of sunglasses to keep the bright sun at bay. Underneath he wore a suit. He had a gun and 17 knives on him as protection. He was also carrying a brief case that held a long distance gun with an excellent scope and a 'radio' that could dial into conversations a mile away.

"déjame salir aquí," (let me out here) he instructed the taxi driver. He was at the plaza near her hotel, in fact, he could see the sign to her hotel. Under normal circumstances, he would be wary to come so close to her, but there were a lot of tourists and shopkeepers roaming around that he deemed it safe. He started walking toward a building that looked like it could be an office building, but decided to bide his time at a coffee shop instead. He would just look like a businessman getting his morning coffee.

* * *

><p>Natasha walked into the cold, brick November air. There were people milling about, eating at cafés, the smell of croissants and sweets filled the air, tainted by the smoke of cigarettes, unfortunately one of the more dominating smells in Madrid Natasha noticed. She walked by several tourist shops, about 2 or 3 Desiguals, and even a wedding dress shop. She walked past all the bakeries, there seemed to be an abundance of them in Madrid. And by the time she got to the metro station and descended into the underground passages she was carrying a croissant in her hand. She had been monitoring Ivan's hideout the past couple of days and had decided that the best time to infiltrate it was when the guards rotated shifts, no matter how cliché it was, it was an efficient and reliable method. The guards rotated within a time span of 11:37 to 11:41 am, but different times each day, inconsistently and erratically. Finally off the metro, Natasha calculated that it would be a 7 to 11 minute walk to Ivan's hideout. She arrived at 11:31, enough time to get set up in a position where she could monitor the guards. At 11:38 the guards rotated.<p>

In the first few months of employment, Ivan had instructed the guards to leave their stations only when their replacements arrived and they had been very dutiful with this task. But after months of no scenarios in which actual guarding was needed, the guards had grown lax. This particular guard had just completed a double 8 hour shift. And his replacement took his sweet time arriving. Needless to say, he left right as his shift ended, after all, _what could happen in the 2 minutes there's no guard_? Was probably somewhat near what his train of thought lie. Natasha's vantage point enabled her to see both the entrance, and the hallway that this particular negligent guard was patrolling. So Natasha noticed that this guard abandoned his post before the due time and had seen his replacement idly take his time. The windows were reinforced, bulletproof glass. Natasha vainly tried to hit it open a couple of times before she noticed that the window was actually unlocked.

As Natasha climbed through the window she approximated that she had maybe 20 to 25 seconds before the replacement came. Natasha grew unsteady as she crept through the deserted hallways. In her experience, a deserted compound was trouble.

"-Soon enough," a ruff, hardened voice said through a door. A voice that Natasha recognized. A voice that had haunted for years. Ivan.

_She was strapped to a table again. This had happened before. At the sight of the clear liquid in a syringe she begin to uncontrollably shake. The leather straps dug into her arms and wrists, preventing any hostile movements towards the red room's precious doctors. It was the brainwashing serum. She started screaming and thrashing. She couldn't move anymore, she was helpless to the inevitable pain, the inevitable amnesia. Her survival instincts kicked in with a wave of adrenaline. All she knew was the leather straps biting into her skin and the helplessness, the cold, foreboding helplessness. And then her senses picked up a person walking in._

"_Natalia, stop fighting it," Ivan's harsh voice ceased her defiant insubordination. "This is for your own good. You made a mistake, the Black Widow does not make mistakes." And then she remembered her mistake. She had shot a girl in an exercise, but she was supposed to. Her mistake was that it wasn't a kill shot, it was 3 d*mn inches away from her heart. The girl had died anyway. Ivan nodded to the doctor. Natalia felt a sharp, cold needle pierce her skin and enter her blood stream. She knew the routine from here. At first all she felt was the sharpness of the needle. Then whiteness. Everything was dim and muted. She felt her body unwillingly relax. Then slowly, as if her senses were rebooting, she began to pick up on things. The sterile smell of disinfectant, the leather straps biting into her skin. But she couldn't remember why she was here. She only associated the pain of the needle and the fear of helplessness with that sterile smell. She only knew that she was Natalia Romanov and she would become the Black Widow._

Natasha took in a sharp breath as she brought herself back into the present. Eventually, she would learn that her memories would come back after they injected her.

"As you say sir," Gustava replied to Ivan. Tense behind the door, Natasha held out a thermal scanner. There were three red spots. One was square, probably an oven or microwave. The other two were two poised men having a conversation, Ivan and Gustava.

"Your sure it's her?" Ivan asked. Not wanting to postpone her reunion with her former handler, Natasha made to kick open the door.

"Yes, fiery red hair, short with a fierce stare," Gustava formed a picture of her.

Natasha paused her onslaught. Gustava knew. He had been playing her all along. And she was actually starting to like him to the point where she might spare him if he got in her way. But now he was just another body in the way of her long delayed revenge for the years of physical and mental torture. She kicked open the door and before either one could do anything, she shot Gustava 3 inches away from his heart. He would not cross the Black Widow again.

"Natalia, how thoughtful of you to come," Ivan smiled as he brandished a knife. Natasha would not be able to explain why, but she put her gun away and got out a knife. On the floor, Gustava tried to limply move to the door, but she threw a knife, pinning his hand to the floor. He cried out.

"Yes it's really lovely to see you Ivan," Natasha said as she threw a knife at him, pleasantries discarded. Ivan saw it coming and dodging it, lunged at her. He flew toward her, a knife poised at her heart, but Ivan had made a mistake, he had taught her all of his moves. She whirled out of the way and retaliated with a solid punch to his spleen, which did little to deter him. He threw an elbow to her stomach, but that did little to deter her. As he aimed a punch at her, Natasha pulled his arm so that she was behind him, twisting his arm until it broke. He grimaced and continued his advance. Natasha assumed a defensive stance. Without warning he lunged at her, tackling her to the ground. He had more body weight, and despite her unceasing efforts, he quickly had her pinned to the ground. As he reached for his knife Natasha writhed out from underneath him and pulled out her own. He was on her before she could assume a flawless stance. As he approached Natasha took advantage of her smaller frame and using her knowledge of human anatomy and leverage was able to twist as he approached and threw him to the ground. In a blink of an eye he was up again. _Sh*t, he knows all the things we learned in the red room, I have to use something I learned at SHIELD. _ Natasha thought back to all her training sessions with Clint.

_She was sparring with Clint. They had been doing so for at least 9 minutes, longer than any other previous sparring sessions. As he came around to punch her, she twirled out of the way, grabbed his muscular arm and flipped under then over it like a gymnast doing a flip on a bar. This put her on his shoulders. From there she had the option to either twist his neck and kill him or softly (that was a matter of opinion) jab him in the throat. She chose the latter. _

While she had been thinking she let her body go on autopilot, defending her. Now she slightly let her guard down on her left side, knowing that he would see this as a mistake and take it as an opportunity. He did. Soon enough, Natasha was on his shoulder but she hadn't anticipated the difference in height, Ivan was about 5 inches taller than Clint. The slight miscalculations cost her. Before she could harm him he threw her off, while simultaneously grabbing her gun from her holster. She landed on her feet but with a gun to her head. For a moment, no one moved.

* * *

><p>As Clint was sipping his coffee he caught sight of a red head descending into the metro station. It was pure luck. Pausing slightly, he followed her. In her hand was a croissant. He found that amusing. There she was tracking down her nightmares with a croissant in her hand. He cautiously boarded the car behind her. She after a few stops she got off. He got off. He followed her through a dusty neighborhood. He watched as she stopped and crouched next to an old building. After a few minutes she stood up and after a few unsuccessful knocks on a window, opened it and climbed inside. From there Clint quickly scaled a fire escape on the adjacent building that was separated by a few yards at most. Peering in the windows, Clint caught movement in one of them. Clint had never personally encountered Ivan, but he had seen his picture on SHIELD's hit list. Age had been kind to him. he was talking to a man when suddenly a figure kicked opened the door and shot the man. For some unknown reason Natasha lowered her gun and took out a knife. They started fighting. When Clint had first met her, he thought she was good. But finally seeing where she came from, how could she not be that good to survive all those years in the red room? It was like watching a deadly dance, with moves and counter moves. Until finally, Ivan threw her off his shoulders and suddenly had a gun. He took his assembled sniper gun and pointed crosshairs at Ivan's heart.<p>

From the radio, he heard their exchange, " I never thought you could be so stupid Natalia," Ivan said. Natasha remained expressionless, the only sign that her old name was being used was in her eyes, a flash of emotion, and then it was gone.

"Go ahead," Natasha nodded at the gun and smiled, " I'm not afraid to die," but there was something behind that smile that Clint couldn't detect.

"See, that's the problem, you should be. I mean, how could you not? You've murdered so many people Natalia, there is no doubt h*ll waits for you in the form you fear most. You've killed so many people, even in death you will never escape them, their haunted cries for mercy as you shot them in the heart. Or was it between the eyes? I suppose it really doesn't matter now. "

Clint put his finger on the trigger. A moment away from pulling it, Clint noticed something. Ivan was wearing a bulletproof vest. From his vantage point, Clint couldn't do anything, Ivan's head covered by a wooden support beam. If he didn't make a kill shot there was always the risk of Ivan still shooting Natasha, and that wasn't an option. And then Clint remembered something else, and with that he lowered his hand from the trigger. His heart telling him otherwise, Clint kept his hand down as he helplessly watched Ivan pull the trigger, his gun aimed at Natasha's heart.

**Sorry not sorry for the cliffhanger! as always, reviews are really appreciated :)**


	31. Chapter 31

**thanks to isikiddo, superhwholockianwriter175, ealasaid una, Guest, and Ani Teen Lyoko for the awesom reviews and feedback. When your done, please review :) it really helps me.**

Clint watched calmly as Ivan pulled the trigger, hoping that he wasn't wrong, because if he was, it would cost him _her_ life. Clint watched as it slowly comprehended to Ivan that she was not only alive and still standing, but was smirking at him. She calmly drew out a knife and threw it at him. This time he didn't manage to dodge it completely, it pierced his side. She drew out another knife and threw it at his shoulder. It became obvious to Clint that he was watching a game of cat and mouse. He watched as she unceasingly threw knives at her former tormentor until he resembled a writhing pincushion. It didn't dawn to Clint that his radio had died until he saw her lips move with no sound from the radio.

* * *

><p>Natasha calmly watched Ivan pull the trigger. Inside, she was smirking at his stupidity, but she had to let him know that he won, so he wouldn't try anything out of her plan. He didn't. After he pilled the trigger she smiled and drew a knife.<p>

"This ones for you," she threw it at him and it pierced his side. "You will be one death I will never regret," she threw one at his shoulder. "For years of torture, this is your payment," a knife in his thigh. It wasn't until Ivan had 14 knives embedded in him that Natasha gave mercy to him. " You're lucky I'm showing you this mercy, because god knows you d*mn well don't deserve it," she said as she shot him in the head. It wasn't until then that Natasha took stock of her injuries. Judging by the throbbing in her wrist, a sprained wrist, grazed abdomen, and numerous bruises. She stalked out of the room. Any guards that crossed her path she merely temporarily incapacitated them.

"Well fancy seeing you here," a voice greeted as she walked back to the metro. No words were needed to say that everything was as it should be again as they walked back to her hotel, his arm over her shoulder.

"Any injuries?" he asked when they were back at their hotel.

" Just a sprained wrist, cuts, and bruises," Natasha said.

Once they were back at the hotel he assessed her injuries "That wasn't as bad as it could've been," he said as he rolled up her shirt to reveal a gash in her side. In silence he sterilized and patched up her wound.

"Did you see all of it?" Natasha asked quietly.

"Yeah, I was watching from a rooftop, I had your back. Were you ever planning on telling me about that cut on your back?" he gave her a half smile, rolling her shirt up more to clean it.

Natasha snorted, "No," as Clint dabbed her wound with a sterile cloth.

"So Jane's baby is due in about 8 weeks," Clint informed her.

"Oh yeah, girl or boy?"

"Girl."

"You know how people ship characters?"

"Yeah,"

"Well what if they names her like Thane or something," Natasha laughed for what seemed like the first time in weeks.

"Yeah, or…. Jare," Clint smiled.

"Nope, Thane would be better,"

"Uh, no, its Jare!" Clint exclaimed. With a small smile on her lips, Natasha leaned her head on his shoulder. At ease for the first time since their breakup, Clint bent over and kissed the top of her head.

* * *

><p>"Well finally! We were starting to wonder if our resident hawk and spider were ever going to come back," Tony greeted them. Well, to be precise they had gotten back late the previous night, even after Tony was forcefully dragged to bed by Pepper.<p>

"Yeah, well we thought that if we were gone to long, Tony would wreck irreparable havoc," Natasha smiled.

"Too late," Bruce and Steve muttered. Natasha looked them up and down and laughed. Steve's hair was orange and Bruce's green, probably in tribute to the hulk.

"Its not, funny! It. has. Been. In. my. Hair. For. Two. Weeks." Steve said, punctuating every word.

"And we haven't found an antidote," Bruce said. Behind them, pouring himself some coffee, Tony smirked.

* * *

><p><span>January 19th<span>

"Guys, this is Eden Adelle," Jane said. After going to the hospital at 6:36 in the morning, the blissful parents finally arrived home 10 hours later.

"Oh, hello there," Pepper cooed at the baby in Jane's arms.

"They wanted to keep us at their hospital longer, but since they were both healthy and we told them that we had a doctor here, they let us come home," Thor smiled.

"You wanna hold her?" Jane asked Steve, "Any one but Tony, Tony is not allowed to hold her." Jane announced as she gently handed Eden to Steve, who was sitting on the couch.

"What? I am offended, you know that? That is a hard blow." Tony said.

"Jane, its perfectly normal to have misgivings about people you would normally trust after giving birth," Bruce assured. "It's a normal mother instinct."

"Okay…. but only when I'm watching him for at least the first week," Jane said as she took Eden back from Steve.

"She has Thor's eyes, but Jane's hair," Natasha said, holding a murmuring Eden. Clint stared at Natasha, he had seen her take down 7 men in less than 3 minutes, he had seen her fearlessly jump out of a plane with no parachute, granted, she had been counting on him to save her, which he did, he had seen her wounded and fighting for her life, but this was a new side of Natasha. Though there was no doubt that the kick *ss Black Widow was still inside of her, this was a new side, gently holding a baby in her arms, smiling at her. Clint smiled.

* * *

><p><em>She was walking. Metal cuffs bit into her wrist. A rough, dark bag was secured over her head. A gag was crudely tied over her mouth. Her shoulder was throbbing; it had probably been shot, and rough hands on her shoulders probably wasn't helping. There was constant dripping and a musty, stale smell, underground? There was another person shuffling beside her and judging by the gait they were injured. Finally, she was forced into a chair, and her hands were tied to it. The bag was thrown off to reveal a dark, dank room lighted only by two flickering light bulbs. <em>

"Почему вы желая пересечь границу?_" (Why do you want to cross the border?) A man demanded in her mother tongue. She took in her surroundings, and suddenly, she knew which horror she was imagining. With a nasty gash in his thigh, Clint was bound up as she, with the one exception of the gag. He remained silent. _

"Хорошо, тогда она получает наказаны за каждый вопрос вы не делаете ответить!_ " (Fine! Then she gets punished for every question you don't answer) the man nodded to one of his employees. He reached down and pressed on her bullet wound. Hard. She suppressed any pain that emerged._

"_Она__тяжело__, __я__дам__вам__, __что__, __но__она__сломаю__достаточно__скоро__. __Теперь__, __как__вы__знаете__, __мы__двигались__этот__груз__сегодня__вечером__?" (She's tough, I'll give you that, but she'll break soon enough. Now, how did you know we were moving this cargo tonight?) Silence. He drew a knife and without warning suddenly slashed at her arm. As the metal bit her skin she held back a gasp. The blood rushed to the afflicted area, dripping onto the cold, hard, concrete._

"_Как__вы__знаете__, __мы__двигались__этот__груз__сегодня__вечером__?" (How did you know we were moving the cargo tonight?) No answer. She fell to the floor, a bruise already starting to form on her face. More questions, she lost track of all of them. But only knew the pain. _

"если вы не ответить на этот вопрос, она умирает,_" (If you don't answer this, she dies) the man snarled, finally losing patience and resting the barrel of his gun on her temple._

"_продолжай__," (Go ahead) Clint said, no expression on his face. And suddenly as it was a dream, her gag was off._

"_Clint, please, no!" she cried. _

"_Лучше__, __тем__не__менее__, __здесь__,"(Better, yet, here) the man handed Clint the gun. She couldn't move as she could only watch as he unlocked the safety and pulled the trigger._

"'Tash! Its okay, you here," Clint shook her awake. Before she was fully awake, she had a knife to his throat. By now, Clint was used to this routine and just let her do her thing. Just old habits, like biting your fingernails, or talking with your mouth full, just an old routine. "It's okay, it was just a nightmare,"

"Thanks," she mumbled, stowing the knife away. After a few minutes of vainly trying to fall asleep they both gave up and went to go spar.

"Want to go watch James Bond and make fun of him?" Natasha proposed it was still 4 am and they had nothing to do.

"H*ll yeah," Some things never changed.

"So are we back together, I mean, I know that with Ivan and all, things have been hard on you, but…" Clint trailed off; they were in a Natasha's room currently watching Skyfall.

" I'd like that," Natasha smiled at him. Their moment was somewhat interrupted by a phone call.

"Hello?"

"Agent Romanoff," Coulson greeted, "Is Barton with you?"

"Yes,"

"Good, we have a mission for you, briefing in 30," he hung up.

"We got a mission," Natasha said. They both smiled, back in their old routine. Some things never change.

** The end. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, favorited, and followed this story; it was my first time ever writing a fanfic and all the awesome reviews and stuff will probably want me to write another, because i'm an avid Marvel fan.**** So tell me if you like how this story ended :) ending stuff is always where i have trouble in writing. I might write an epilogue later... please review and give me your thoughts :) and thanks again for giving me your support (i.e reviewing, favoriting, and following) it was my first fanfic so it meant a lot to me :) **


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